


Winter Kept Us Warm

by Bronnwyn



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I'll see you all in hell, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bronnwyn/pseuds/Bronnwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa struggles with the aftermath of battle and makes plans for the future. Jon confuses her in more ways than one. (Post "Winds of Winter")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I mean, since they're cousins now...it's fine...

There was someone looking at her across the hall.

He thought she didn’t notice, but she did. She noticed everything now. The blood underneath a warrior’s fingernails. The dirt underneath her own. The stink of the bodies still carrying from the battlefield. The slightly rotted taste of the meat.

Winter was here, and she had little time for pretenses.

Glancing up from her bowl, Sansa Stark met the man’s gaze, her mouth set in a hard and unfeeling line. He looked away almost instantly. Of course he did. Some random bannerman making eyes at the Lady of Winterfell with the King sitting next to her had the potential to be a grave mistake. If Jon had a sharper temperament, then there might have been a brawl. Or at least some hard words exchanged.

He’d become very protective of her these days. There was a part of her that wanted to resist against it. All her life she’s had men telling her what’s best. Shielding her from the world with pretty lies or unrealistic truths. Her father, Littlefinger, Joffrey, Jon. They’ve all lied to her, whether they realized it or not. No one could protect her. Not for long.

The only person she could truly rely on was herself.

But, as that thought hardened itself within her, she recalled something her father said time and time again. _The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives._ She’d been a lone wolf among lions, flowers, falcons. It never ended well. Now she was a wolf among wolves. Bears. Northerners. She didn’t have to carry on by her own strength anymore. She had Jon. A pair of broad shoulders to lean upon should the need arise.

“You all right?” He mumbled in that distinctly Northern way of his. He never enunciated like noble echelons would have wanted him to. Not that it mattered much here, she supposed. In the South, your outward presentation was everything. One false word could have gotten you killed.

Jon wouldn’t last long down there. Just like their father.

Sansa managed the faintest of smiles. At least, for him, it was genuine. Not the false courtier’s smirk she had to wear anywhere else. “Yes, of course. Just…thinking.”

Jon turned in his chair to look at her, hands resting on the table. He had dirt _and_ blood underneath his fingernails. “About?”

“The past,” she answered quietly, her voice almost drowned by the raucous laughter coming from a group of men in a far corner. They drained mug after mug of heavy northern ale, wiping at their beards with meaty hands. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just tired is all.”

Jon made a noise—a grunty Northern noise—and turned back to his mutton. “I’d rather you sleep in the Lord’s chambers. It’s warmer there.”

Sansa had to stop herself from sighing. They’d had this same argument at least ten times in the past fortnight. “I’m not the King,” she said, smashing down the dark feeling rising in her stomach. Winter was here. She hadn’t the time for pretenses. Or jealousy. After all, it was not the throne she wanted. Just a little recognition, which she got. She needed to think about what she had, _not_ what she wanted. “My chambers are perfectly sufficient. You’ve better things to worry about.”

Jon stilled. His throat bobbed as he swallowed his food. “I want to make sure you’re comfortable is all.” He looked at her, sad eyes a shade sadder than usual. “You got us here, Sansa. Not me.”

_Yes,_ she thought bitterly. _I_ did _get us here. And what have I gotten for it?_

Her home. Safety, however tenuous it might be. Her family. An army. Queen in the North she was not, but Ramsay was dead and Jon would kill anyone who tried to hurt her again. That was enough. It _had_ to be enough. Jealousy had no place among them now. It was what Littlefinger wanted and what Littlefinger wanted, Littlefinger didn’t get to have. Not here.

“Sansa,” Jon said. Something in his voice made her look at him. He leaned toward her, tentatively reaching for her hand as though he wasn’t sure if he should do it or not. “I mean it. None of us could have done this without you.”

She balked at the warmth of his skin. He’d touched her before, yes, but those were in times of desperation. She hadn’t any mind for how she—or anyone else—felt then. All she cared about was getting Winterfell back and killing Ramsay. She’d accomplished both of those things. All that was left was to make sure she stayed alive long enough to see the fruits of her labor.

Made shy by her silence, perhaps, Jon cleared his throat and withdrew his hand. “Just try it for one night. Please. I’ll manage elsewhere.”

There would be no swaying him from his plan, she knew. He was as stubborn as a mule. “Fine,” she said, rising to her feet. A hush fell on the rest of the hall, as it always did when she so much as twitched. A sign of respect she usually associated with queens. It felt a little strange, considering the king in this situation was her brother, but she appreciated it nonetheless.

“Goodnight, Jon,” she said, lowering her volume in accordance with the quiet of the hall. She put a hand on his fur-covered shoulder.

He smiled up at her, tight-lipped. “Goodnight.”

***

A fire was already popping in the hearth when Sansa took up residence in the Lord’s Chambers. She suspected this was Jon’s plan from the start. He more than likely awoke this morning already set on making her stay there. She swore to herself after Ramsay’s death that she’d never let a man force her to do anything again. This, however, was a notable exception.

Undressing down to her shift, she settled at the edge of the grand bed her parents once slept in. That Jon now slept in, that _she_ was now sleeping in, that…that _Ramsay_ once slept in. That monster haunted her waking hours as well as her sleep. Try as she may, she couldn’t fully forget what he did to her. Brutalized her on the inside and the out. Her only regret regarding him was that she sorely wished the dogs had taken longer to eat him.

Stifling a yawn, she banished all thoughts of the bastard Ramsay Bolton from her mind. He’d never hurt her again. She made sure of that.

The door began to creak open. Sansa’s hard-won peace shattered in an instant. Jumping to her feet, she remembered who she was and went to see who called. Maybe Jon forgot something in here and declined to knock. Maybe some drunkard had gotten lost. Maybe—

“Oh,” said a young woman around Sansa’s age, perhaps a year or two older. Her dress was gray and dour blue, matching most of Sansa’s. “I—I’m sorry, my lady. I did not realize you—”

“Who are you?” Sansa asked, not unkindly, though her tone edged on exhaustion. The girl was certainly pretty, with long brown hair and bright blue eyes. What she was doing anywhere near the Lord’s Chambers remained to be seen. Sansa guessed it had something to do with the handsome young King.

The girl clasped her hands together until her knuckles whitened. “No one important, my lady. I had simply thought to ask the King if—…”

“The King is occupied,” Sansa said. By the very loud feast happening not far away. Surely this girl hadn’t missed it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to bed.”

“Of course,” the girl curtseyed. She no doubt had dreams of King’s Landing in her head, just as Sansa once did so many moons ago. “Many apologies for disturbing you, my lady.”

At least this No One Important had the courtesy to shut the door behind her.

As Sansa readied herself for bed for the second time that night, there came a knock. Praying to the old gods and the new for patience she could feel wearing thin, Sansa went to answer it when all she really wanted to do was yell _go away_ like an impetuous child.

It was only Jon.

He made another Northern noise at the sight of her in her shift, eyes cast downward to the floor. “You’re still awake,” he said. His breath smelled strong of ale.

“Do you want your room back?” She didn’t know why else he’d be here so late. Even supper had wound down.

“Ah, no,” Jon shook his head. He would not look at her, but she could still see the ghost of an embarrassed smile on his lips. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, but I—….”

Sansa stared at him. He cared more about the impropriety of seeing her in her underclothes than she did. _You ought to care,_ said a voice in the back of her head. A voice that sounded terribly like Littlefinger’s. _He’s your half-brother._

Sometimes she wondered if that was true. When she was younger, she fully bought into her lady mother’s hatred of Jon, thinking him the result of her father’s one-time moral failing. Now that she was older and hopefully wiser, she couldn’t fathom her father straying from her mother. It didn’t make any sense. Why would a man so consumed with his own honor do something like sire a bastard, then bring said bastard home to rub in his wife’s face?

Furthermore, Jon’s coloring was so unlike her own. So unlike Robb’s or Rickon’s or Bran’s or Arya’s. He looked more Baratheon than Stark.

_Robert_ Baratheon, that is. Not any of the golden-haired ones.

“Jon?” Sansa prompted. He grew very quiet.

“It’s nothing,” he decided suddenly. “I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

He was off down the corridor before she had the chance to tell him about his visitor.

That night, Sansa Stark dreamed of snow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Littlefinger is the worst, pass it on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did NOT expect this fic to blow up the way it did? You guys are the best. Thanks so much for your loveliness so far!

Littlefinger found her once again in the Godswood.

She thought he’d be gone by now. Prayed for it, even. Yet, here he was, many, many days after the Battle of the Bastards, leering at her with his rodent eyes. He was a fool if he thought she still bore any sort of affection for him. Selling her to Ramsay like a prized head of cattle all but assured her loathing.

She was not stupid enough to let him know it, however. She would play his games as long as she had to. As long as it took to solidify her hold on Winterfell and keep Jon in power. What a tricky and tangled game she had to play. She pulled strings from the shadows in ways Jon would never understand. In his heart her… _half-brother_ was far too noble for such back room machinations. He never would have dealt with Littlefinger the way she did.

And he would have died because of it.

“You’ve that look again,” said Littlefinger, pulling her from her thoughts.

_He_ had that look again, too, the lecherous rat. “And what look would that be?”

Snow fell in fat flakes between them. Littlefinger’s eyes glinted in the pale winter light. Pretty truths and even prettier lies, that’s all Petyr Baelish was. Sansa vowed never to forget that again. Rats were rats and rats could be eaten. By wolves, preferably.

“Like you’ve seen a ghost.” Littlefinger took exactly one step toward her and Sansa took exactly two steps back. She _had_ seen a Ghost. The direwolf lingered on the outskirts of the grove, nearly undetectable among the snow. His eyes were the only thing that gave him away. He and Baelish had that in common.

Gaze moving from Jon’s wolf to the man she wished would get _eaten_ by Jon’s wolf, Sansa blinked impassively, choosing her words with great care. As one always should when conversing with Littlefinger. “These are trying times, my lord. There are ghosts everywhere.”

With that, Sansa made her exit. The dark blue fabric of her dress whispered across the snow. To her immense satisfaction, Littlefinger made no move to follow her.

“Give the King my regards,” he called. “I do not think he’ll remain here for long.”

Sansa froze. Her gloved hands curled into fists at her sides. A breach of proper decorum and a show Littlefinger was no doubt pleased with. He knew he had her then. Dangling Jon in front of her like a threat. An omen. She’d indulged Baelish with her fists, and she knew she had to loosen them. She couldn’t.

“I pray you have a good night, Lord Baelish.” She said finally. Every word felt like spitting out something rotten. She resumed walking. Ghost awaited her, red eyes inflamed with that direwolf intuition she remembered seeing in Lady.

Littlefinger still would not let her go. He had to shout in order for his voice to carry. “I thought you no longer prayed?”   

“I don’t,” Sansa replied. She did not make the effort to shout.

***

Once again Sansa and Jon found themselves walking Winterfell’s battlements. It had become a habit of theirs since retaking the castle. They’d talk strategy, they’d talk food, they’d talk whatever newest garment she’d made. Today they talked of White Walkers. She wanted to know everything there was to know about them. Knowledge was the only way they’d win this war. It was the only way any war was won.

_“The Iron Throne is nothing compared to what’s coming,”_ Jon told her once. The thought was chillier than the wind biting through her cloak.

“How are they defeated?” She asked, breath materializing before her in icy clouds.

“Dragonglass,” Jon answered. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. “Valyrian steel.”

Sansa was quiet. She let his words sink in. Dragonglass and Valyrian steel, neither of which were in abundant supply. If what Jon said about the Walkers and wights were true, then they’d need all the corpse-killing substances they could get. She almost laughed at herself, at this newfound fascination she had for the dead. The Sansa of years ago wouldn’t have cared a lick for Walkers or wights. She would have made a disgusted face and a noise to go along with it and then she would have gone back to her sewing patterns or some such thing.

What a stupid, silly, frivolous girl she had been.

“How did we get here, Jon?” She asked him, a smile touching her lips. She only really smiled for him anymore. It was easy. Easier than with anyone else. Ever. She often caught herself wondering why that was. Perhaps because she did not need to pretend for him? He cared little for courts or gowns or parties. He was not enchanted by pretty words. He didn’t want to use her up and spit her out like every other man she’d ever known did.  She didn’t care much about making him proud like she did her mother and father.

She could simply _be_ with Jon in a way she never realized until now.

Jon matched her smile, a laugh rumbling in his chest. “Well, Sansa, you scolded me until I decided to get off my arse. And now we’re here.”

She couldn’t stop herself from laughing. After Ramsay, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to laugh again. It felt good. “If only it were that simple.” Her smile faded. It was then she realized that she’d stopped walking. Jon stopped with her.

“We’ll be all right,” he said. He clasped the back of her neck in a display of affection that jarred her as much as it pleased her. That it pleased her at all sent the blood rushing to her face. Surely he had to be a Baratheon. Or…or _something._ A distant Stark. A _cousin._ In this moment she desperately wished it were so, because if he really _was_ her half-brother, then perhaps her time with the Lannisters had affected her in more ways than one.

Deeply ashamed of herself, Sansa forced her feet to move again. She was still a stupid girl, wasn’t she? She’d given up on heroes long ago but here Jon comes along, snatching her out of Ramsay’s stranglehold and delivering him on a silver platter. It was the closest thing to a heroic action she’d seen since…

Well, Lady Brienne.

Sansa swallowed a hiccup of laughter. Lady Brienne, her knight in shining armor, and Jon Snow, King in the North, her wolf in a mountain of fur. It was absurd. _She_ was absurd.

“Sansa,” Jon was at her side again. “Have I, ah,” a Northern noise, “have I offended you somehow?”

Sansa couldn’t bring herself to look at him. How the tables had turned since the last time they’d had an awkward moment together. “No, of course not.”

He was really very terrible with women, wasn’t he? All that time at The Wall would do that to a man, she supposed. Not that it mattered. He was not hers to be concerned over. Not in this matter, at least. Let his future wife worry about his aptitude for wooing.

Jon seemed satisfied enough with her answer. They walked in silence now, the moonlight washing the landscape in the palest of blues. No one disturbed them up here. Not even the guards, who knew to keep a healthy distance when the King and his Lady were on one of their walks. They stopped again a few paces from the tower that would lead them to their beds for the night. It was getting late, and Sansa could feel her eyes growing heavy.

She was always tired these days.

“Sansa,” Jon said, putting his hand on the door before she got the chance to open it.

She stared at him, strangely worried about what he had to say. Where Jon went complications followed. She could see it in his face, a quiet sadness he wore like a second skin. Jon had seen things Sansa couldn’t even fathom. The wights, the Walkers. The sheer brutality of living at the Wall, teetering on the edge of the universe.

It frightened her when she was there. It frightened her even more now that she knew what was at stake. The Wall wouldn’t hold forever. What lay beyond it was so much more important than any iron throne.

“I haven’t asked,” Jon said, snowflakes catching in his hair, “but I wanted to know. If you’ve…”

“I’m fine.” She didn’t want to venture too far into this line of inquiry tonight. It was too late. And they both knew neither of them were _fine_ anyway. It was all just another ruse. A play in the great game. She tried to smile to assure him of just how fine she truly was, but she could not force her lips to do it. No more lies between them. For the most part. “You needn’t worry about me, Jon.”

Jon laughed again. A mirthless noise. Their breath mingled together in the frigid night. “Someone’s got to.”

_No_ , thought Sansa. _No one gets to worry about me now. I will not let them._

The only person who ever worried about her now was Littlefinger. And his worry was selfish. Everything that man did was selfish. Every look, every word, every gesture. All for personal gain.

But this was Jon. She doubted he had a selfish bone in his body. The world had not yet ruined him like it did her. That alone made him a rarity. She envied his sense of pride. His willingness to trust in the inherent goodness of the world. It was a foolish thing to trust in.

She envied it nonetheless.

The door opened in front of them. A sinewy figure was silhouetted against the dim torchlight.

Sansa’s stomach twisted at the sight of it. As much as she wanted to back away, she kept her feet firmly planted and her chin held high. Lord Baelish could do nothing to her with Jon standing next to her.

_Jon can’t keep you safe forever,_ whispered that terrible voice in the back of her head. _No one can save you._

Littlefinger stepped out of the shadows, hands clasped in front of him. He looked at Sansa first, then to the newly anointed King. “I’ve interrupted you. My apologies.”

If Jon had hackles as his direwolf did, they’d be raised now. Sansa recognized the hardness in his face. The slight upturn in his posture. “Is there something we can do for you, Lord Baelish? A cloak, perhaps?” Jon gestured to Littlefinger’s marked lack of appropriate winter clothing.

Littlefinger smile his rodent’s smile. “It is very kind of you to ask, Your Grace. I’m humbled.”

Sansa was already growing tired of his fakery. As if she wasn’t exhausted enough before he insinuated himself in the only peace she’d had all day. “We were just about to retire for the evening, Lord Baelish. The battlements are yours to walk.”

Jon remained silent at her side. Stoic as statue.

Littlefinger chuckled. The noise slithered through the air to raise gooseflesh on Sansa’s arms despite her many layers. “It is good of you to keep the Lady so close,” said he, addressing Jon with a quirk of his brow. “Winter is here, as you well know, and I fear our dear Sansa has been spoiled by all the warmth.”

Sansa very much wanted to choke him. Throw him off the battlements and watch as all the bones in his wretched body shattered when he hit the ground. Instead she only blinked at him, face as stoic as Jon’s. “Your concern is unfounded, Lord Baelish. Excuse us.” She smiled. Fakery, indeed. “If you please.”

“Of course,” Littlefinger stepped aside with a gracious bow. “Sweet dreams, my lady.”

He said nothing to Jon, though Sansa could feel him smirking all the way back to her bedchambers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa is more conflicted than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since y'all are so great, you're getting a chapter early!

Sansa had taken ill.

She felt the cough tickling at the back of her throat, warning of things to come, but she ignored it. She hadn’t the time for illness. There was too much to be done. A castle to run, a people to appease, a King to counsel. Jon needed her to be well. He needed her far more than he realized. Far more than _anyone_ in all the Seven Kingdoms realized.

A stupid, silly, frivolous girl she had been. Porcelain, ivory, steel, and now?

Dragonglass. That is what she had to be. That is what they _all_ had to be for the battle ahead. The South did not matter to her. The Iron Throne did not matter to her. Only the Long Night did, and the dusk was fast approaching.

Sansa coughed into her sleeve. Crimson warmth seeped through the fabric. Her eyes widened, and she dabbed at it with the tail of her of her furs. Red smears, bright and ominous. Seven hells. She did this to herself, didn’t she?

“Sansa?”

She jumped, quickly shoving her furs back into place and clasping her hands together so that the darkened spot would not be as noticeable. “Jon,” she breathed. “You—you frightened me.”

“Are you all right?” He asked, skipping an apology. He did not need to feign formalities when they were alone like this. The hall was empty, torches flickering dimly in their sconces. Shadows danced against Jon’s somber face.

Sansa did not want to lie to him. She did not want to give him another reason to dote after her, either. “I’ve a cough,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

Jon looked not at all convinced. He had not shaved in many days and was finally starting to look the part of a scruffy Northerner. “Remember what Old Nan used to say?”

It took a moment, but Sansa did indeed recall the elderly woman’s scratchy voice. _It’s never nothing_ , she’d scold every time one of them so much as sneezed. She’d then spend all day pouring soup down their throats and badgering them about going back to bed.

Old Nan was dead. Just like everyone else. It didn’t matter what she said.

“Let her haunt me, then,” Sansa turned on her heel like a dancer in a box and headed for the door before Jon found something else to worry over.

Some secret part of her longed for him to pursue her. To insist that she should lie down and rest until she was well. Just like a knight in a story. But this was no story and her life was no song. And so Jon did not pursue her, electing to give her yet another reason to avoid him the rest of the day.

She hurried out of the hall and kept walking until she was safe in her chambers. From there she let forth a great coughing fit, shoulders shaking so fiercely that she could no longer hold herself up. She sank to the cold floor, coughing and coughing into her gloves until there was nothing left of her but agony.

_Stupid girl_ , she thought. _You are going to die because you don’t want to trouble him._

Maybe death is what she wanted all along. Maybe it had taken her this long to realize it. Winterfell was hers once more, but her parents were dead. Rickon was dead. Robb was dead. Bran was scattered to whatever winter wind had taken him and Arya was at the mercy of her own rage. Only Jon was here with her and, gods help her, she felt things for him she knew in her heart were wrong.

They had to be.

Ever since she spied him at Castle Black, something inside her flared up, a new spark come to life. It had been so long since they were last together. Years. She hated him before. She hated him because her mother hated him. Hated him because he was a bastard, a symbol of her father’s infidelity.

She never considered him her brother. Half-brother, perhaps, but not even that. He was nothing to her. Snow burying the wolves.

Now, years later, he was _everything_ to her. He was the secret she guarded from the world. The knight in black she never envisioned, but sorely wanted. She loathed herself for it. Her _mother_ would have loathed her for it and that was worst of all.

“You _idiot_ ,” she whispered to herself and the emptiness of her room. She stripped off her bloody gloves and threw them as hard as she could. They sailed through the air and landed just short of the fire in the hearth. Damn it all, she couldn’t even burn her gloves by herself. Did she need Jon to come in here and do that for her, too?

Sansa did not acknowledge the hot tears burning at the corners of her eyes. She was a Stark. And she could be braver still. Swallowing hard, she pushed herself to her feet and undressed down to her shift. She needed another garment for the day. One that did not bear the signs of her sickness.

Her hands shook as she tied every lace of yet another dark blue frock. This one had her sigil on it. The direwolf embroidered in silver, branches twisting around it. _Jon likes it._

Yes. Jon liked it. But that was not the reason why she chose it. Or so she told herself.

Properly dressed for the second time that day, Sansa busied herself with burning her gloves. She didn’t want to look at them anymore. She’d just have to make a new pair. For now, she settled on an older pair and pulled them on. A lady’s armor was her courtesy. A decent fashion sense helped as well.

Everyone loved a beautiful woman. Especially if that beauty had red hair.

***

The rest of the girls at Winterfell grew very quiet whenever Sansa tried to approach them. A few were younger than her, so it was natural to be cowed by the Lady of the castle, but the others were around her age or older. _They’re frightened of me_ , Sansa thought as she joined them in their sewing.

She did not want them to fear her. If anything she wanted to protect them from the Cerseis of the world. The Myrandas. The younger girls she especially wanted to shield. Not shelter, like her parents did with her, but spare them the atrocities she had to suffer.

No Winterfell woman would marry against her will, if she had any say in it. Any husband who beat his wife would get his hands cut off. My, how sweet that would be.

“You are very skilled, my lady,” said one of the girls. Brown of hair. Green eyes. She looked a little like a Mormont.

Sansa smiled. She shoved the shadows from her mind and tried not to cough. “Thank you.” She nodded to whatever it was the girl was sewing. It looked like a tree, she supposed. Misshapen, but with time and practice, Sansa was sure she’d get better. “It seems you’re making great progress as well.”

The girl reddened and shook her head. “Oh, no, my lady, this is rubbish. Really, it is. I’m just trying to pass the time.”

Sansa’s smile widened. This possible Mormont was more of an Arya, then. Very good.

“My lady,” said the girl on her right, with a fair amount of trepidation. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Sansa stilled her needle.

The rest of them had stilled as well.

“Um, well,” the girl continued. She blushed so intensely that it looked like she had a rash. “The King.”

_Oh no_ , Sansa thought. She did not foresee this conversation ending in any comfortable place. Her mask never slipped, however. To these girls she was just a simple half-sister. The Lady in the North in title only. “What about him?”

“Is he…” The girl put her sewing down and wrung her hands together. “Is he, well…”

“Is he going to take a wife?”  The possible Mormont blurted. Not such an Arya after all.

Sansa did her best to remain impassive, despite the cough rising its ugly head again. Jon _needed_ to take a wife. Forge some alliance with another major House in order to _ensure_ no one would take their home again. Whether she wanted him to take a wife was not important. Winterfell was important. Defeating the Others was important. Not her stupid feelings.

“In time, perhaps,” was all Sansa could think of to say. She too retired her sewing. “If you would excuse me, ladies, I just remembered some business that needs attending.”

The girls all hopped to their feet and bobbed their best curtseys. Sansa smiled at them like a good little queen, then exited as fast as she could. Suddenly she could not stomach seeing their faces anymore.

Unfortunately, she did not get very far. In her haste to flee the room, she did not pay any real attention to where she was going and promptly ran into something very solid and quite furry.

Of course it had to be Jon. Stupid Jon.

He held her shoulders, pushing her a step or two back. “Sansa, what are you—…”

One of his hands moved from her shoulder to cup her chin. She had no choice but to look at him now. His forehead creased with concern.

“Sansa,” he said again. “Your nose is bleeding.”

“What?” She croaked. She stumbled out of Jon’s grasp, wiping at her nose. There it was, scarlet and alarming. It seeped to the parting of her lips and she could taste the warm salt on her tongue. “Oh.”

Jon stepped toward her, hand outstretched. Sansa shook her head as if to say _no, you stupid man, get away from me._

“Sansa,” he said softly. It was almost a croon. A croon to soothe a frightened animal. “Let’s get you to bed. Come, now.”

“ _No_ ,” she backed away, hitting the nearest wall. The torchlight was far too bright for her exhausted eyes. “I won’t…I’m _fine_ , Jon, please!”

That was all she could say before the world slipped out from under her.

And yet, even as darkness consumed her, Sansa was not afraid. She was not afraid when Jon took her in his arms, when he held her close against his chest, when he laid her down in the Lord’s chambers and shouted for someone to help him.

Sansa was not afraid because, despite her best efforts, she still believed in heroes.

She believed in Jon.

Oh, she hated herself for it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa has a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're welcome, everyone.

There was a tower.

Corpses littered the ground, blood staining the dirt. The sun shone hotly in a bright blue sky. It warmed her face and melted the frost from her tired bones. Winter was here, but it was not _here_. Wherever this was. Sansa did not know. The last thing she remembered was Jon sweeping her off her feet as blood dripped from her nose and drained from her ears.

_I’m dying_ , she thought in that moment. Then she opened her eyes.

And here she was.

There was a tower. And there was the sun. And there was the screaming.

“Hello?” Sansa called. Her voice was hoarse. The screaming stopped. She looked to the stairs winding up the tower, weeds growing in their cracks. She had to climb them. She did not know why, but she knew she had to do it.

Taking a breath, Sansa began her journey upward. As the steps multiplied and the ground left her, a sharp pain stabbed at the middle of her forehead. She stumbled, clutching the stone of the tower. It was warm against her skin.

She resisted the pain as well as she could. _I am a Stark,_ she thought. _I am made of dragonglass. I can and will be brave._

She kept climbing. Up and up to the top of the tower like a princess in a tale. She hadn’t a clue what awaited her there. Only wild guesses floated around in her addled brain. A princess, perhaps. A prince? A three-eyed raven? Or, even more ridiculous, her _family?_ This _was_ some sort of dream, after all. It had to be. She had never seen this tower in her life. How else could she be here when she was just in Winterfell?

At long last, Sansa arrived at a door. She pressed her ear against it. A cry sounded from within. The urge to know, the urge to see, the urge to _understand_ possessed her like a demon. It was not she—Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell—who opened the door, but a woman control by strings unseen. An invisible puppeteer propelled her through that door and into a room. A sunwashed room that smelled of gore and sorrow.

Sansa barely had time to drink it in before the pain in her forehead exploded. She ground her teeth together in order to keep herself from screaming. All the light in the room flared along with it, drowning her in white.

Piercing through it came three words, crisp as a winter afternoon: _Promise me, Ned._

The scream building inside of her could no longer be denied. She unleashed it into the light, screamed until her throat was raw with it. The pain grew and grew and grew. It felt as though an axe had been bashed between her eyes, cleaving her skull in two.

_I’m dying_ , she thought again. _I’m dying in a dream._

Her eyes snapped open. The light faded away, evaporating into the air. There was a tower. And inside the tower was a woman in a blood-soaked bed. Crouching next to her was a man. _Promise me, Ned._

Sansa gasped. That man was her father. And that woman…

“Sansa?”

Her stomach twisted. She could not tear her eyes from her father, young as spring, cradling a baby in his arms. _Promise me, Ned._ The sunlight burned. The pain throbbed, ever-present. _Promise me, Ned._

_“Sansa?”_

She stepped toward the bed, hand outstretched. The invisible strings coaxed her forward, pulling and pulling until she was but a whisper away from the young man who would be her father. _Promise me, Ned._

“You shouldn’t be here!” A hand grabbed her shoulder.

Sansa flinched, whirling around to face her newest assailant. What she saw nearly brought her to her knees. Unbidden tears sprang to the corners of her eyes. “Bran?” She whispered.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated. Whereas tears filled Sansa’s eyes, fear filled Bran’s. How sweet it was the see him again! He was taller now, a man grown. All the more remarkable was that he was _standing._ What a dream, a terrible and wonderful dream.

“Bran,” she began, moving to hug him. “What—”

“You have to leave,” he grabbed her and steered her away from the bed. His voice shook. “I—I don’t know how…I pulled you in here, Sansa, you have to go before it’s too late!”

“But—”

Bran shook his head, fingers digging into her shoulders. His eyes were wide as coals. “Tell Jon,” he said. “Tell Jon—”

Sansa choked. The pain slammed into her with renewed fury. Her knees went weak and she would have fallen without her brother’s support. No, she did not want to leave him again. It was too soon! They barely had any time together! That terrible light flooded her vision, blotting everything else away.

Only Bran’s voice remained, calling to her through space and time. “Tell Jon!” He echoed. “His mother—”

The light exploded around her.

Sansa woke up screaming.

***

Someone caught her as she flew up from her bed.

“Shhh,” they soothed, petting her hair. “It’s all right, my love. You’re safe.”

Revulsion roiled where fear had bloomed. Tasting bile in the back of her mouth, Sansa shoved her captor away. Littlefinger. The first face she had to see upon waking was _Littlefinger._ She wished she’d stayed asleep.

Lord Baelish smiled, looking only a mite wounded at another rejection. “I am so glad to see you awake, my dear,” he said. He reached for her, and she leaned away from his touch. “I thought you were lost to me forever.”

_I am not yours to lose_ , she thought. She clutched her furs to her chest, heart slamming a rapid rhythm against her ribcage. “How…” Her voice scratched in her throat. “How long…”

Littlefinger leaned into the bedside candlelight. Half his face drowned in shadow. “Four days.”

Four days. She’d been gone for _four days._ Mere moments in that tower lasted _four days_ on this plane. Her breath caught. She bowed her head so that Littlefinger would not see her fear. “I…” She remembered what Bran said with perfect clarity. The image of her father was burned into her brain like a firebrand. _Promise me, Ned._ “I need to see Jon.”

_Tell Jon. His mother…_

His mother was their aunt. Who else could that woman have been? Trapped in a tower, dark haired and beautiful, her face matching the one in the crypt. His mother was Lyanna Stark. Not some faceless peasant. And his father…

“Your nose,” said Littlefinger. He tried to wipe at the blood Sansa knew was there. She pushed his hand away.

“Where is Jon?” She asked again, steeling her voice so that she might sound more like the Lady of Winterfell rather than a frightened girl. “I need to speak with him. Now.”

Littlefinger stared at her. She feared his gaze alone would rend her open, scoop out all the horrible secrets she kept locked inside. He knew the depths of her feelings. He knew _everything_. She hated him, by the gods, she _hated him._ “Am I not enough for you?”

His question struck her cold. He would never be enough for her. He was manipulative and cruel and worst of all, he pretended that he was not. At least Ramsay knew of his own evil. Littlefinger refused to acknowledge his. He cloaked it in pretty words and far-fetched promises. His love for her was not love.

It was obsession. And it disgusted her.

But, as the gods would have it, she did not have to answer his question.

The door opened and Sansa knew it was Jon. She did not have to see his face or hear his voice. She knew, inexplicably as a dream.

“Sansa?” His voice sang in her heart. She wanted to run to him. Throw her arms around his neck and tell him all that she had seen. Lyanna Stark. Her aunt, his mother. And…and…

Jon rushed forward, his boots thudding heavily on the floor. He was a storm. A blizzard in the darkness. Littlefinger scarcely had time to blink before Jon grabbed him by the throat, slamming him into the wall beside the bed. The candle on the table shivered in terror.

“What did you do to her?” Jon demanded. His rage was not booming. It was chilling. “Did you touch her? Who let you in here?”

Littlefinger choked. That was his response.

Sansa watched on, feeling nothing for Lord Baelish and everything for Jon Snow. _Promise me, Ned._

“Jon.” It was not out of concern for Littlefinger that Sansa spoke up. “Jon, let him go.”

Jon did not let Littlefinger go. He did, however, turn his head to look at her. His rage softened. Barely. “Did he touch you?”

_He wanted to._ Sansa shook her head.

Only then did Jon let Littlefinger go. The older man coughed, struggling for breath.

“Get out,” Jon told him. When Lord Baelish did not move fast enough for the King’s liking, Sansa saw Jon’s hands ball into fists. “Leave, Lord Baelish, and don’t come back in here.”

“Of course,” Littlefinger croaked. He offered them both a meager bow. For Sansa, a smile. “I am so glad to see you awake, my lady.”

Sansa had nothing to say to him. Her gaze followed him out of the room. The door shut with a soft click.

At last, Sansa felt like she could breathe.

Jon lowered himself on the side of the bed, wearing his furs and looking so much like a King that Sansa could have wept.

“Jon,” she began, but her…her _cousin_ cut her off.

He held her face in his gloved hands and pressed his mouth to her forehead as he did their first few days together. He lingered, warmth leeching into her, and when he pulled away, he did not go very far. “Gods,” he murmured, forehead pressing against the spot he’d just kissed. “We thought you were dying.”

The breath rushed from Sansa’s lungs. She twisted her eyes shut to keep from staring at his mouth, so achingly close to hers. “I’m sorry,” she said stupidly. She had no idea why she was apologizing. She did not ask for that dream. That vision. Whatever it was.

Jon chuckled, and it warmed her as surely as his lips did. “There’s nothing to forgive.” He quieted. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

Sansa felt his gloved thumb brush above the curve of her mouth. Trembling, she opened her eyes. He was so handsome. Handsome and brooding and dark and painfully, lovingly honest. He promised he’d protect her. And protect her he did. “Jon,” she said. She pressed her lips together. “I have to tell you something.”

His face fell. “What is it?”

She took his hands in hers, holding them tight in her lap. “When I was… _gone_ , I had a--…a dream.”

Jon waited in silence for her to continue.

And continue she did.

“There was a tower…”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are watchers in the wood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus chapter!

Jon had not spoken to her in seven days.

Sansa kept count.

Ever since she told him of what she saw in that tower, he withdrew into himself, spending every supper next to her in sullen silence. Her attempts at conversation had been rebuffed with Northern noises or nothing at all.

It was a long and terrible stretch of emptiness, carving a hole in her chest where her heart should have been. They were farther apart now than they ever were and Sansa could hardly stand it anymore. Besides the ghosts of her family and the knowledge of Bran’s apparent safety, Jon was all she had.

That he ignored her now was a wound she could not allow to keep bleeding. She could not possibly know his pain—as he could not possibly know hers—but she desperately wanted to help him in any way she could. All pretense aside, Jon Snow (she could not bring herself to ever call him a Targaryen) was a good man. One of the best. He was strong and he was gentle and he was brave. He always tried to rule with a fair hand. He, unlike many of the vipers in King’s Landing, cared about everyone, not just those who could bring him some sort of gain.

_I shouldn’t have told him,_ Sansa thought to herself on more than one occasion. _I could have spared him this pain and I didn’t._

On the other hand, he needed to know. Needed to understand that he was not a bastard, but the scion of two great Houses. He was fire. He was ice. And he was not her brother. Or her half-brother, for that matter. Sansa felt egregiously selfish when she thought of this. Disgusted with herself, as always, but selfish nonetheless.

He was not her brother. She was not his sister.

By the Seven, how did her father keep that secret for so long? and when was he planning on telling Jon, if ever? Not telling him seemed unfair. Finding out this way probably felt even worse. _I shouldn’t have told him_ , Sansa thought. _But he needed to know. Let him hate me if that’s what it takes._ Sansa thought these things over and over again until she no longer cared that Jon refused to speak to her.

Yes. She no longer cared. She would treat him like a child if he wanted so badly to act like one. Let him sulk, let him brood. He wouldn’t even _have_ a kingdom or his pretty title _or_ the knowledge of his true parents if it wasn’t for her.

Let him be ungrateful. Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell, did _not_ care.

Littlefinger took notice and was quick to capitalize on her apathy. He accompanied her on walks, kissed her cheek when he deigned to leave her, and chatted to Jon at supper about how lovely she was, how wonderful a wife she would make some lucky man.

Jon, for his part, made his noises and resolved to pick at his venison.

Sansa sipped at her ale. It did not make her choke like the ale at Castle Black did. She smiled and nodded at everything anyone said to her, though she barely registered what it was they were talking about to begin with. Her food had no taste. Her ale was fine, but stale. Even the promise of lemoncakes brought in from the south did nothing to excite her.

She was as dour as Jon now.

The only time she felt anything like the Sansa Stark she knew she should have been was when she and Jon reached for the same chunk of bread. Their fingers brushed and for the briefest of moments, Sansa stopped breathing.

Jon pulled away all too quickly and conceded the bread to her with a slight nod. “Take it,” he mumbled. The first thing he said to her in seven days was _take it_ and it was in regards to a piece of bread!

Sansa had to quell the urge to throw it at him. “I don’t want it anymore,” she said sharply. She stared down at her full plate of food. She had no appetite and the only reason she wanted the bread in the first place was to make it _seem_ like she had any desire to eat.

Jon pushed the serving dish down the table. His way of letting her know this conversation was over. As if it ever began.

A massive shadow swallowed her food. Sansa looked up to see a giant of a man standing there at their table, his grin large and expectant. A Manderly, she recognized, by his sigil and strong family resemblance. “Trouble in paradise, eh?” He said to Jon, who only just looked up from his food, mouth full of venison.

“Hm?” Jon said.

“You two!” Exclaimed the man. He made a sweeping gesture at both Sansa and the good King Jon. “Bitter as a couple’a old widows. What’s gotten into you, hm? Marital spat?”

Jon choked on his venison. Sansa choked on her ale. The Manderly man laughed as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Blushing furiously, Sansa dabbed at the corner of her mouth with the nearest cloth. _Marital spat_. Yes, very funny. She was positively beside herself with amusement.

“If you’re looking for _new_ wife, Your Grace,” the Manderly continued, seeing as it was clearly his goal to humiliate both his King and his Lady tonight, “then I’ve got just the girl for you back home! My daughter!”

Jon swallowed hard, leaning back in his chair and wiping his mouth off with the cloth Sansa had just used. “I, ah…I…appreciate the sentiment, but, ah…”

This exchange was _painful_ for Sansa to witness, and not entirely because of the jealousy twisting in her gut. Jon could not play the game very well at all. Granted, the Northern game was different than the Southern game, but a great game it still was. One that Jon would lose if he weren’t more careful.

“What the King means to say is that he has no desire to marry at the moment,” said Sansa in his stead. She cut him a sideways glance. “Isn’t that right, Jon?’

Jon’s relief was palpable. The relaxed slump of his shoulders was imperceptible to most, but to Sansa it meant victory. “Right. Yes.”

The Manderly boomed with laughter again. The rest of the hall was quiet in comparison. “Fair enough,” he said, sweeping Jon a little bow that would have been seen as wildly disrespectful anywhere else. The King in the North had no propensity for proper decorum. “Your Grace. M’lady.”

Sansa smiled briefly. Jon, true to his character, did not.

***

Later that night, when the moon was high and full in the sky, Sansa returned to the godswood. Her breath passed her lips in frozen clouds, the skirt of her dress dusted with snow. More of it fell to cover the forest in a fresh layer of glittering powder. It was the first beautiful thing Sansa had witnessed since seeing Bran in her vision.

Sansa stood underneath the branches of the heart tree, staring at its face and wondering if it would ever blink. Considering that she’d been standing there for at least fifteen minutes without any indication of such a thing, she knew she was fighting a losing battle.

Still, staring at this tree was better than staring up at her ceiling in bed.

The tell-tale crunching of footsteps in snow alerted her to another’s presence. She did not turn to meet it, assuming it was Littlefinger. This was his favorite place to torment her now. He’d ask about her day, then beg in his own way for her hand in marriage. Lord Baelish would never call it begging for he never did it on his knees, nor did he actually _beg_ , but that pathetic tone would creep into his voice and sometimes he’d try to kiss her.

She always stopped him before he got that far.

“I’m afraid I’m not feeling very _loquacious_ tonight, Lord Baelish,” she said flatly, refusing to look away from the heart tree. _Lord Baelish_ was her own special torment. He so wanted her to call him Petyr. She never would.

“Neither am I,” the voice replied.

Sansa bowed her head, effectively losing her contest with the heart tree. Jon. “Nor have you been for days.”

Jon lumbered to her side. He clasped his hands in front of him and bowed his head as well. “I know.”

A hard lump formed in Sansa’s throat. Maybe it was the presence of the heart tree that made her feel so raw. It was said that one could not lie under its watchful gaze. Maybe it was simply the fact that Jon was speaking to her again. Or maybe it was something else altogether. Something she still could not bring herself to admit.

“Are you very angry, Jon?” She asked. It was all she could do to keep her voice from breaking. “I thought you had the right to know. Bran wanted me to tell you, and I…”

“I could never be angry with you, Sansa,” Jon said. The night was dark but the moon washed everything in silver. The heart tree’s ancient face stared and stared. “I’m just…I’m…I’m so confused. About everything.”

Sansa did not know what to say. So she said nothing and waited for him to continue, hoping in her heart of hearts that he would.

And he did.

“All my life,” he said softly, “I thought I was nothing. A bastard. Your mother hated me and there was a part of me that could not fault her for it. And now…”

Now Jon was everything. A Stark. A Targaryen. Westeros’s best kept secret. Sansa couldn’t even begin to comprehend how Jon felt. How it felt to know his entire life had been a lie. A lie perpetuated by a man he loved and trusted and admired.

Come to think of it, Sansa knew _exactly_ what it was like to be betrayed by the people she thought she could trust.

Jon took a breath deep from his chest and let it out with a heavy sigh. A sigh, Sansa thought, filled with the weight of two kingdoms inside it. “I don’t know what I am.”

Sansa blinked. Tears spilled hotly down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away before Jon could see, but it was too late. He saw.

“Sansa,” he began.

No. She would not let him comfort her now. Not when he was the one who needed it the most. “Jon,” she grabbed his hand. She held it so tightly that her knuckles immediately began to ache. Neither of them turned away from the heart tree. “You are King in the North. You are a Stark by right and a Targaryen in blood only. You—you are good and you are brave and you put up with my _utter stupidity_ and, and…”

She trailed off. The tears kept coming, despite her demands that they stop. A harsh wind gusted forth from the darkness. Her chest ached.

Finally, after a long silence, Sansa forced herself to speak again.

“I need you, Jon.”

Four words. Simple and honest. But saying them felt devastating. She flayed herself alive for him with the heart tree as her witness. She needed him. By the old gods and the new, she needed him.

What if he didn’t need her back?

Imagine her surprise when he turned, beckoning her to turn with him. Looking at him face to face made terror all the more real. It writhed inside her like a living thing, infecting every part of her body. What made it worse was that look in his eyes, his soft and extraordinarily sad eyes. She wanted so badly to reach out and touch his face, run her fingers along the blunt curves of his cheekbones, trail them against his scruffy jaw.

She hated herself. For needing him this badly. For believing that he could protect her. For once again buying into the lie that heroes still existed in this wretched world.

Finally, Jon spoke. “I need you, too.”

They stared at one another as only two broken people could. Blue eyes searched brown. Another wind blew, and a wisp of Sansa’s fire-kissed hair caught on her bottom lip. It was a bit chapped, as were her hands. Winter was here, of course. It had no sympathy for her skin.

Sansa lifted her hand to brush it away, but Jon, ever the noble, got there first. His thumb ran against her bottom lip, the tendril loosed to the mercy of the wind. Sansa was dumbstruck. All she could do was stare.

“I’m sorry,” Jon said. Though he did not sound sorry at all. In fact, Sansa had to remind herself that she was not dreaming because it appeared that Jon was doing the very thing Lord Baelish tried to do many times in this wood.

_What is he doing?!_ Her head screamed.

_What you’ve wanted him to do since you saw him at Castle Black,_ said her heart.

All ability for coherency vanished from her body as Jon’s forehead brushed hers. His eyes were fixed firmly on her mouth, and hers on his. Their breath came in frozen clouds, mingling together in the space between them.

Sansa trembled in Jon’s grasp. This was wrong. Somehow, it was wrong. The gods would strike them down for this, wouldn’t they? The ghost of her mother would come back to kill her. Seven hells, her _mother._ She would hate her for this. She’d beat Jon bloody. It would be horrible.

But she was dead. Everyone was dead.

Who were they to have an opinion on what she wanted? What she _needed?_

Sansa felt herself leaning toward him, free hand clutching the fur covering his shoulders. Jon drew her ever closer, so close that they shared breath. Seven hells. She wanted this. She wanted this with every fiber of her aching being.

“Jon,” she whispered. “There’s…There’s nothing to forgive.”

Just as she finally resigned herself to wanting him, something moved out of the corner of her eye. Icy fear lanced her heart. No. No, no, no, no.

“What is it?” Jon murmured, completely unaware that they had company.

Sansa broke away from him as quickly as she could. She stumbled on her skirts, back hitting a tree. Jon watched after her. A bewildered expression tightened his face.

“Sansa,” he repeated, “what—”

“Someone— _someone was there_.” She pointed to the woods behind him, to darkness she knew cloaked a voyeur. “Someone was there, Jon!”

Jon’s eyes widened.

The heart tree was not their only witness.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conspiracy unfolds.

Paranoia wound its way into Sansa Stark’s heart and squeezed until she no longer trusted her own shadow trailing beside her on the wall. It had been days since the godswood. Days since she almost kissed Jon Snow, King in the North, with the heart tree as their witness. Days, and still she could feel his forehead against hers, the almost-brush of their lips, her hand clutching his furs. He haunted her. In every way imaginable.

Both Sansa and Jon resolved to keep things between them as “normal” as possible. They did not allow themselves to be alone together. They did not meet in the godswood. They spoke of only superficialities at meals and abstained from touching one another whenever possible.

While Jon did his best to rule his kingdom and prepare for the Others, Sansa took it upon herself to root out their voyeur. She carried with her at all times a list of possible suspects. Littlefinger was the most obvious. Sansa knew he spied on her regularly, befitting a lovesick stalker. The ladies of the castle could not be discounted, either. Perhaps one of them followed Jon that night in order to get him alone. It could have been a wandering child, even, lost among the ancient trees.

Sansa’s list was a very long one, you see.

She started with the ladies. Her sewing group from the weeks prior. She could play the smiling queen better than anyone else in this castle, and as much as she was loath to manipulate these girls, it had to be done. In the game of thrones, you win or you die. There was no middle ground. The same could be said for affairs of the heart. She knew that better than most.

“Have any of you given any thought as to whom you might marry?” Sansa asked them one particularly blustery afternoon. It was not very subtle, but she’d been at this for an hour now with hardly anything to show for it.

It was not as if she had anything else to do.

Spending time outdoors was not an option. Winter bared down on them this day with all its might. The snow fell in blinding torrents, buffeted by winds that howled through the castle to pull at candle flames and chill its inhabitants to their Northern souls. Even the hardiest of them stayed inside. Save for Jon, who volunteered himself to make sure the horses had food and enough warmth to survive the night.

Everyone talked of how selfless the new King was. Selfless, and touched in the head for daring a such a storm. Sansa was not surprised. She recalled her own time at The Wall. How overwhelming the cold there was, how it stole the breath from your lungs and cut at you through your clothes. She’d spent only a few days there and found it rather miserable. Jon had lived there for years. He was used to storms of this magnitude. And much worse.

 “I’d like to marry someone handsome,” answered one of the girls. She had hair the color of honey and a smattering of freckles across her face and a dreamy look in her eye that Sansa pitied. Foolish, pretty girl. The world would destroy her one day. “Someone kind. Someone who won’t want to use me only for my body.”

The other girls muttered their agreements.

Great sadness washed over Sansa then. These fool girls and their summer dreams. They wanted what everyone wanted. Someone kind to love them. Someone good. Someone gentle. Someone strong. Those people hardly existed.

Jon was the rare exception.

Was it any wonder they lusted after him?

“What of you, my lady?” Asked the freckled girl. “Would you like to…”

“Lissa!” The girl next to her admonished. The rest of the girls seemed to be holding their breath. “Don’t ask Lady Sansa that, you stupid—”

The freckled girl, Lissa, had the look of a spooked doe. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s quite all right,” Sansa interrupted, touched by their sympathy as much as she was suspicious of it. She offered Lissa a kindly smile. Her sewing lay untouched in her lap. Snow whipped at the window in silver streaks. “I will marry again if I must. As is my duty.”

As she said these words, Sansa could taste their falsity on her tongue, bitter and cold. She _would_ marry again if that’s what was necessary to keep her home. Only this time, it would be of her own volition. No one, she vowed, would ever force her hand again. No _man_ would ever beat her, rape her, _own_ her again. If he tried, she’d have him killed. Simple as that.

The conversation started to drag. Sansa watched each girl closely as she stitched. She watched for shaking fingers, darting eyes, anything that could be counted as an admission of nervousness. She saw nothing.

What a relief it was to know she wouldn’t have to exile one of her newfound friends.

Sansa took her leave of them as the light dipped low in the window. Supper would be served soon. Many visitors from the past week were stuck here in the castle due to the storm, so it would be larger than usual. As a result, Sansa’s nerves were frayed as her dress skirts. She did not let it show, walking the corridors of Winterfell as a Lady should—with her head held high and her mouth set in an unfeeling line.

Many here in the castle admired her grace and her sheer force of will. They knew damn good and well that they would not be here without her. Jon might have fought the battle but Sansa won the war.

Just as she would win this one.

Rounding the corner to her chambers, Sansa came to a hard and sudden stop, catching herself on the edge of the wall. At the end of the torchlit corridor, near where her rooms were, stood figure. A waif-like figure draped in a black cloak. A large hood concealed their face, but a pair of pale hands clutched something close. Something long and silver, something that glinted threateningly in the light.

A dagger.

Sansa slid around the corner again, quiet as a sept mouse. Back pressed against the stone, she waited a few moments before peeking down the corridor. Her heart pounded. She swallowed a gasp as the figure entered her room. She could hear the door creaking from here.

A heartbeat passed, then two, then three.

In an instant, everything changed.

Littlefinger burst out of Sansa’s quarters with the cloaked figure in tow. As Jon did when Sansa first awoke from her vision, so Lord Baelish did now with the intruder. He slammed the figure into the opposite wall, hand to their throat. Sansa could not bring herself to look away. What sort of conspiracy _was_ this?

“You idiot,” she heard Littlefinger say. His voice was taut with fury. “You’ve nearly ruined _everything_.”

“I’m—I’m sorry, my lord,” choked the hooded figure. “I—I thought he’d be in there.”

“Does it _look_ like he is in there?” Littlefinger hissed.

Jon. Sansa knew in an instant. They were talking about Jon, who had insisted that she sleep in the Lord’s chambers again now that winter was gaining its hold. It was one of the few conversations they allowed themselves to have.

_I want you to sleep in the Lord’s chambers,_ he’d said exactly three days ago. _It’s warmer. Consider this an order from your King._

He’d said it with one of those half-smiles he was so good at wielding, and Sansa found herself relenting to his will. The Lord’s chambers _were_ warmer, she had to admit, but she wouldn’t not say so to Jon. No sense in making him smug.

Sansa peeked around the corner again. Littlefinger let the figure go. His hands were balled into fists. This was as close to rage as she’d seen him. Lord Petyr Baelish did not participate in outward rage. No, he preferred his anger to burn like the slowest of candles until he got the chance to burn it at both ends.

Then, instead of imploding, Littlefinger usually just threw the candle away and burned everyone else around him to the ground.

“You will not fail me again,” he told the hooded figure. A promise. A demand. Littlefinger could make anything sound like a threat. “Now go.”

Sansa watched as the hooded figure turned the wrong way—not toward her but toward her chambers again—and vanished inside. Littlefinger set his shoulders and promptly kicked the wall he’d only just choked that person against. Sansa was not horrified by his unusual display of rage. She…

She very much enjoyed it, in fact.

So much so that she could feel herself smiling.

Littlefinger was not as infallible as everyone wanted to believe, and one day soon she would destroy him. He would never leer at her again. He would never touch her again, he would never claim to love her again when all he wanted was a piece of her long-dead mother. Littlefinger was as sure a monster as anyone. And monsters could be killed.

Footfalls drew her attention away from the strange scene she had witnessed. She glanced over her shoulder to see Jon striding down the corridor, his hair wet with snow. His furs were draped over his arm and he sniffed loudly, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand. His gloves were piled on the fur and as he walked, he yanked at his boots in an attempt to throw them off.

For all his experience with blizzards, the King in the North looked utterly sick of his namesake.

Sansa rushed to meet him, kicking off her own slippers to ensure that her footsteps would not be readily heard. She regretted it immediately. The stone was freezing against her skin. All the more reason to hurry.

Jon looked up at her, frowning. “San—“

She slapped her hand over his mouth, shaking her head. He stumbled a few steps back, clutching her shoulder, but he did not remove her hand. Jon Snow was not stupid.

He knew nothing about this particular area of politicking, however, and the cogs in Sansa’s mind were turning with ideas. She had a plan. A plan to turn Littlefinger’s conspiracy on its head. Lord Baelish was not the only who could play this game.

Now that she was sure Jon would keep silent, Sansa let her hand fall and stepped forward to whisper her plan in his ear. It went like this.

She stormed down the corridor, rounding the corner with a fearlessness that Jon seemed to balk at. She hoped he could play along well enough for this to work. It might’ve been their only chance to make sure Littlefinger was kept at bay.

“You promised me, Jon!” Sansa shouted, pretending not to see Littlefinger still lingering near her room. “You _promised_ this wouldn’t happen again!” She rounded on him and worked up the urge to cry. Tears formed on command. “I _trusted you!_ ”

Jon blinked at her, hesitating long enough that it probably would have given them away if he hadn’t looked so naturally wounded all the time. “Sansa, you don’t understand,” he said finally, his broad brogue ragged with sadness.

Sansa couldn’t have been prouder in that moment. He _really_ sounded upset. “You _promised me_ ,” she said again. “I will _not_ marry him. I won’t!”

“You will,” Jon countered. He fixed his gaze on her and nothing else. Good man. Just as she told him. “You will because I _command you as your King_ that—”

It was Sansa’s turn to feel wounded. Literally wounded, by what she said next. It would have been better if she slapped him. Or yelled, even. But she thought it better to say these three words in such a level voice that it could not be mistaken for anything but the awful, honest truth.

“I hate you,” she said coldly. “You stole my crown, my home, my title, my _right_ , despite the fact that you know _nothing_ about ruling, nothing about court, nothing about…” She struggled for another insult. The shock on his face only added to it. She did not tell him of this part. “You know nothing about _anything._ You’re but a bastard with a crown a child gave you.”

Lastly, to drive her point straight into his heart and into Littlefinger’s scheming mind, she said: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

Turning on her heel before she had to see the pain she’d again caused him, Sansa shot a shocked Littlefinger her most pleading glance—oh, save me, Lord Baelish!—and stormed into her room, slamming the door behind her.

She prayed they put on a convincing show, and hoped that Jon would forgive her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A raven has arrived from the Citadel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you're all wondering how Bran got to Sansa. That will come soon. Also, I have a Tumblr now if you'd like to follow me on there. Same username as on here. Cheers!

Everything happened very quickly after that.

With the blizzard’s weakening and the castle’s extra inhabitants on their way back home, Wiinterfell settled into a reluctant state of normalcy. Everyone knew their place. Everyone knew their part. And everyone fell in line, determined to face the battle to come.

Meanwhile, Sansa waged a different war. The good Lord Baelish did his chivalric duty by having her watched at nearly every moment. He sent his soldiers, who failed entirely at being discreet. He sent his ladies, who made their way into Sansa’s sewing circle and pretended to enjoy being there. He sent himself, he whose starving eyes always managed to make her feel like she was being eaten.

It would have been easier to drive a knife in his throat one night at supper, she supposed, but the consequences were not something she could afford. She had to protect herself. Her home. Her King. With Ramsay, she knew there had been no other way but battle. That monster responded to little else but brute force. Littlefinger liked to make play at pacifism.

Sansa knew how his mind worked better than anyone in all the Seven Kingdoms. It had to be she who brought his downfall. No one else.

Jon didn’t like it.

“I’ll just…” He looked down at his boots, jaw clenched. “I’ll send him away.”

“No,” Sansa said. She clasped her hands together in her lap, discomfited by this whole bloody meeting of theirs. She knew they needed to talk, but this was dangerous. The Lord’s chambers were the first place Littlefinger would send his spies. Up until now, Sansa refused to step in here, but Jon had all but begged. “We need him here, Jon. We need his army. We need his favor.”

Jon sighed. He looked at her through hooded eyes, one hand gripping Longclaw while the other hung limply at his side. “I know. You’re right.”

Sansa was right about many things, thank you. “I can handle him, Jon. I’m the only one who can. Not you, not your soldiers. No one else but me. Do you understand?”

Jon only blinked at her. They had to trust each other. She slowly came to trust him. Now it was his turn. “Aye, all right. I do.”

Sansa arose from the side of his bed, satisfied. The fire in the hearth filled the room with rare warmth. She longed to soak it in. But there was work to be done. As always. “You can’t protect me forever, Jon. The sooner you realize that, the better off we’ll be.”

He couldn’t protect Rickon or Robb or her mother or her father. The only person he needed to worry about protecting was himself. Sansa could manage on her own. She was a wolf, tried and true. She would cower from no one. Not anymore.

“Before I go,” she closed the distance between them and put her hand on his. The one that covered Longclaw. Her mind was focused solely on making Littlefinger see once and for all that she was not his to gain or lose. Her feelings for Jon had to come second. “I need you to forgive me again.”

Jon’s mouth twisted in a smile. She was the only person he did that for. “For saying you hated me or telling me I knew nothing?”

“Both,” she said.

Jon’s smile faded as quickly as it came. “For a moment there, you sounded like…”

Someone dead, Sansa assumed.

“Someone I once knew,” Jon finished. Dead, then. “Her hair was a bit more orange than yours.”

She must have meant a great deal to him, this orange-haired woman, if Jon ventured to bring her up. Sansa felt sorry that they’d never meet again. Jon deserved happiness. With someone who made him look so tender as this orange-haired woman made him look now. That someone, Sansa knew, could never be her. Not unless word of Jon’s true parentage came out. Not unless Winterfell direly needed a unified front. Not unless Littlefinger was dead in the ground. He’d never stop pursuing her otherwise.

“She sounds like a lovely woman,” said Sansa. She removed her hand. Her feelings had to come second, her feelings had to come second.

Jon scoffed. He shook his head, a temporary grin lighting his face. “Aye, she was. Never would have liked being called it, though.”

A dozen different questions burned on the tip of Sansa’s tongue in spite of her resolve to not care at all whom Jon fancied. Who was this woman? What was her name? She had to have been a wildling. Jon was much too solitary to find any such woman during his time here in Winterfell. What did the rest of The Watch think? Did they even know?

As much as she wanted to, Sansa did not vocalize these questions. She held her burning tongue with the finesse of a seasoned courtier and bade Jon a subdued goodbye. The corridor was empty. All the rooms in this part of the castle were empty as well. She made sure of it before she agreed to the meeting.

Littlefinger was next on her list. He asked to meet her in the rookery. He said he had news to share. Urgent news. A worrisome thing to hear. Her stomach churned as she climbed the narrow steps to the top of the building, the din of the ravens matching the tumultuous feeling she nursed inside.

Lord Baelish was at the rookery’s window when Sansa entered, cutting a dark figure against the pale winter light. He did not turn around.

“There you are,” he said.

Sansa stood in the doorway. She would enter no further unless she absolutely had to. The ravens complained in their cages as ravens were wont to do. “What is it that you want, Lord Baelish?” She asked.

“A raven came from the Citadel today,” he said.

“And?” Sansa replied.

“The message was from one Samwell Tarly. Have you heard of such a man?”

Sansa narrowed her eyes. Samwell Tarly. Jon had mentioned him a few times. A fellow brother of the Night’s Watch, on his way to becoming a maester. Jon would be pleased to know that he made it to the Citadel in one piece. “I have.”

Lord Baelish finally did her the courtesy of turning around. He held the message in his hands. “Would you like to know what he wrote?”

What is he getting at? Sansa thought. Sam was Jon’s friend. She did not need to know the contents of their personal correspondence. Neither did Littlefinger, for that matter.

Something was wrong here. Something was very, very wrong.

“You’re going to tell me anyway,” Sansa said, ignoring the chill dancing down her spine.

Littlefinger chuckled. She was so glad at least one of them was having a good time. “’Jon,’ wrote this Sam. ‘I have found something incredible.’”

Sansa’s heart began to sink. Littlefinger read on.

“’You aren’t a bastard, Jon.’”

Sansa had to cling to every scrap of willpower she possessed to keep from charging at Lord Baelish, snatching the message up, and ripping it apart. A task made easier by the fact that she couldn’t seem to make herself move. At all.

“’You aren’t a bastard, Jon,’” Littlefinger repeated. He tilted his head to the side a fraction, feigning surprise Sansa knew he did not feel. “’You’re a Targaryen! And your mother…’” He paused. “Do I need to continue?”

The only noise in the rookery came from the ravens, but even they were muted by what Littlefinger had read. If this Samwell Tarly was to be believed, then the Citadel somehow had evidence of Jon’s heritage. Evidence the world’s most ambition rodent could now control.

All leverage she might have had over Lord Baelish was gone. He had her. He won. Seven hells. He won. Sansa tasted bile on her tongue. Without knowing it, Samwell Tarly had doomed her. Littlefinger had everything he needed to blackmail her into a marriage.

Sansa wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to enchant one of those stupid ravens and have it peck Littlefinger’s beady eyes out.

“You look pale, my dear,” Lord Baelish pocketed the message, coming to Sansa’s aid like the proper knight he deluded himself into thinking he was. He cupped her chin. His voice dripped with condescension. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Just like you thought I wouldn’t find out that you’re in love with your cousin?”

The breath caught in Sansa’s throat. All feeling left her hands and feet and the taste of bile grew all the stronger. She was not…she was not in love with Jon. It—it was…A silly attraction at best. An ill-advised infatuation she knew she had to overcome. If not for her sake, for his.

Littlefinger stroked his thumb along her jawline, sending a ripple of revulsion lancing through her. “Oh, Sansa. You needn’t look so upset. It’s all right. I’ll protect you, I promise.”

Sansa could hear no more of this. She shoved Lord Baelish away, though her strength had waned with her confidence and Littlefinger was repelled a step or two, no more. A fabricated frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I understand that you’re upset, Sansa. But there’s a way we can fix this. Without your precious Jon coming to any harm.”

No.

She promised herself this wouldn’t happen again.

“Don’t,” she choked out, blood draining from her face. “If you’ve any real love for me at all, you won’t ask me to do this.”

Evidently, she was wrong.

Lord Baelish was not moved by her pleas. He was, if anything, eminently practical. “It is because I love you that I must,” he said. He almost managed to look sad about it. “If I don’t protect you, my dear, then who will?”

No one, she thought bleakly.

No one could protect her.

Not now.

Not ever.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight trigger warning for suicidal thoughts. It's nothing too graphic, but I wanted to make sure you're all warned.

Littlefinger gave her two days. Two days to get her affairs in order. Two days before he officially announced their betrothal. That these two days were granted at all was a miracle unto itself. Lord Baelish was anxious to wed his new bride. Sansa was far less enthused.

She hadn’t been able to get out of bed. She shivered in her freezing room, the furs she buried herself in doing little to keep out the cold. Candles burned weakly in the gloom, some melted down to their wicks. Sansa figured If she lay here long enough, without thirst or appetite, she would wither and die like a rose in a blizzard. She couldn’t tell if this was what she wanted, or if it was what her body had resigned itself to.

The thought of marrying Petyr Baelish wholly incapacitated the Lady of Winterfell. She refused every visitor. She refused every kindness. The only time she got up was to relieve herself, then it was right back to bed. Her first day was waning. One day left.

The gods had truly abandoned her and no prayers passed her lips. Her breath came in shallow wheezes. Despair settled heavy in her bones. She would not go to Littlefinger alive. She would throw herself off the nearest tower before that happened.

Death was the one and only choice she could make for herself. And death she would have. One day left. She would wait for Littlefinger to come to her. Then she would stab him in the stomach with the knife she smuggled in from the kitchens. She would then stab herself. Make him watch as she died. Make him bear witness to her ruin.

Finally, before her last breaths, she’d take him with her. Send him off to the seven hells where he belonged for the rest of eternity.

_A fitting end_ , she thought. _Poetic. Like in a song._

Her door opened as beams of silver moonlight pattered the floor. Most of the candles had gone out. Sansa blinked the frost from her eyelashes. She couldn’t move.

Her visitor’s footfalls sounded terribly loud to her muted ears. Her breath rattled. Someone sat down on the side of her bed. She still could not bring herself to move. She knew exactly who it was and the thought of facing him made her sick. She lost. She spoiled everything.

“Sansa,” Jon said. He placed his hand on her shoulder. His warmth scorched through the thin fabric of her shift. She gasped. It sounded more like a sigh. “Sansa, what happened?”

She couldn’t tell him even if she wanted to. Her mouth was so dry from lack of water that any words she tried to form were nonsensical at best. It was easier this way. The North needed Jon more than it needed her. The Long Night was coming soon. What could she do to fight against it? Stab a Walker with her sewing needles?

“It’s freezing in here.” Jon’s breath was a steamy cloud. His hand moved from her shoulder to brush her cheek. Even in the dark she could see his eyes widen. Without warning, he pulled her up from the bed and gathered her against him, rubbing his hand against her back. “What are you trying to do, turn yourself into a Walker?”

He meant it as a joke. Sansa was not laughing.

Nevertheless, her body responded to his touch in ways her brain scolded it for doing. Her stiffened fingers curled against his chest, her head buried in the side of his neck. She couldn’t cry. She could scarcely breathe. But she could nestle herself there and pretend, for a moment, that everything was all right.

Jon muttered empty platitudes in her ear, his arms wrapped firmly around her shivering shoulders. He thought she was sick again. He had no idea the real reason for her utter despair. He only held her. And he would not let her go. She drowned herself in his warmth, committed to memory the hard column of his body, the crisp scent of winter clinging to his skin. She failed him. She failed herself.

Finally, Sansa spoke. Letting him find out after she was dead seemed unnecessarily cruel. “He knows, Jon,” she said. “A raven came…came from the Citadel. He…found it.”

Jon was quiet, but his grip on her tightened all the more. They were fools to think they could deceive Littlefinger. Beat him at his own game. Blasted, bloody fools. “I’m sending him away,” Jon said. His voice was tight. “I’ll—”

“He’s forcing me to marry him,” Sansa continued. Where Jon’s voice was tight, hers was hollow. “If I don’t, he’ll come after you. Kill you, probably. I’m not going to let that happen.”

Jon pulled back a fraction, gripping her shoulders. “He can’t—”

Sansa shook her head. The motion made her dizzy. She lifted her icy hands to his face to keep herself steady. “I’m going to kill him, Jon. I’m going to make him suffer and then—”

“ _No_ ,” Jon said. He knew where this was going. She could tell by the desperation with which he held her. Like his life depended on it. “It’s madness, Sansa, you can’t. I--…I’ll forbid you.”

Sansa laughed for the first time in what felt like an eternity. It hurt, her chest tightening with it. “You can’t forbid me to do anything, Jon Snow.”

“Yes, I can,” he held the back of her neck, drawing her close so that mere inches separated them. “And I’m forbidding you to do anything that might put you in harm’s way. You can’t and I won’t let you. Not now, not ever.”

Sansa swallowed against her parched throat. Handsome, brave, stupid Jon. Once upon a time, everyone thought _her_ the naïve one. In reality, it was Jon. He still thought he could save her. Protect her. She ached with love for him, her heart swelling at the fierce look in his eye. He would cut down all the Seven Kingdoms for her. She realized that now.

It was a lovely sentiment.

“He’ll never stop, Jon,” she said, thumbs tracing the blunt lines of his cheekbones. “He will never stop until he has me. He’ll kill you and everyone else. I won’t allow it. The North needs you. _The world_ needs you.”

“But _I_ need _you,”_ Jon whispered intensely, forehead pressed against hers. Sansa’s skin burned. “Isn’t that what you said? That night in the godswood? We need each other, Sansa. I can’t do this without you, I can’t do _anything_ without you.”

Tears, unwanted and unbidden, stung the backs of Sana’s eyes. Damn it all, he couldn’t just let her do what had to be done. “Jon,” she said. “I need to do this, let me do this. Littlefinger _has to die_ and I…”

“Marry me instead.”

The words fell between them like a headman’s sword. Swift and unrelenting, they struck her straight in her beleaguered heart. _Marry me instead._ To marry Jon Snow would be to let loose his heritage upon the world. He was her cousin, not her half-brother. Targaryen blood flowed through his veins, and with the Dragon Queen hot on their heels, the ramifications of this decision would be felt across the world.

_Marry me instead._

Marry Jon Snow, King in the North. Some called him a god. The Prince Who was Promised. To others, he was simply Jon. King Crow. A turncloak. To Sansa, he was everything that baffled her, pleased her, frightened her.

Could she ever call him _husband?_ Share his bed, give herself to him as a wife was required to do? What would her mother say? More importantly, what would _Littlefinger_ do? Either arrangements had to be made to keep his knights or they’d lose that part of army forever. Or worse.

Sansa stared down at her bed.

“It’s the only way to make sure you’re safe,” Jon said. She could hear his breath thicken in his throat. “I…I don’t care if everyone knows what I am. If that’s what it takes to keep him away from you, I’ll do it.”

“Jon…”

If they were going to do this, _really and truly do this_ , they had to plan accordingly. Arrangements had to be made before Littlefinger found out. A monumental task. But if they could pull it off, then…

Littlefinger would never touch her again.

The thought of it made her laugh. And laugh, and laugh, laugh. She laughed until Jon began to laugh with her. “Is marrying me really that laughable?”

Sansa just kept laughing. The despair that previously weighed her down took flight from her body with each new giggle. She felt light as the snow falling outside her window. She wanted to float outside her body and take flight in the midnight wind, scatter herself to the sky. Littlefinger would never, _ever_ touch her again.

Collapsing back onto the bed, Sansa covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing anymore. She stared up at Jon in the blue dark as Jon stared down at her, a reluctant smile on his lips. She, Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell, was going to marry Jon Snow, King in the North. Her mother would have an absolute fit.

And Littlefinger would never touch her again.

The pure thrill of finally making him suffer negated any nervousness she might have felt. There was only light in Sansa’s heart. The real work could begin tomorrow. For tonight, she dared to feel happy. Hopeful. Alive.

“We’re going to kill him, Jon,” she said.

“Aye,” Jon agreed. He pushed a tendril of hair out of her eyes. “We’re going to kill him.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding and a funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you guys should know that I had "Light of the Seven" on repeat while writing this. Cheers!

The next night—the last night Littlefinger allowed Sansa to have—the Lady of Winterfell and King in the North married in a hasty ceremony under the bleeding gaze of the heart tree. With House Stark in ruin and Jon’s _real father_ long dead, it was difficult to find anyone they could trust to participate. Sansa wished Brienne were there. She’d have done it. Not willingly, perhaps, but aside from Jon, there was no one Sansa trusted more. She longed for her siblings as well, wondering the entire way through what they’d think.

Arya would have hated it on the simple fact that it was a wedding. Bran probably knew, what with his gifts. Little Rickon—he was not so little when Ramsay put him down, was he?—would have been looking for any excuse to escape. Robb…Robb would have been happy for her. And for Jon. As for her parents, Sansa dared not think about it lest she accidentally summon her mother’s furious ghost. And her father, her dear father…

This was what he wanted for her, wasn’t it? She remembered his words with visceral distinction as she dressed for the ceremony. She’d been stupid back then, those eons ago. All she wanted to do was marry Joffrey and have dozens of golden-haired children. Her father, in his wisdom, sat her down and said: _‘‘When you’re old enough, I’ll make you a match with someone who is worthy of you. Someone who is brave and gentle and strong.’‘_

Jon was all of those things and more. Brave, gentle, strong. Gallant (in his own way), passionate, loyal. He was willing to marry her and risk his reputation to keep her safe. He was willing to tell the world who he really was, the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, just to ensure Littlefinger would never hurt her again.

Sansa wished she had the words to thank him for it, but whenever she tried to think of the proper ones, she found herself starting to cry.

Every one of her “marriages”—if they could even be called that—brought with them nothing but misery. There were times, many times, when she thought she would never be happy again. Times when she thought she _deserved_ her agony for being a stupid girl with her head in the louds. Those times were gone and now she was to be married to someone she never thought she’d more than tolerate, let alone wed.

Littlefinger was right. Partially. She loved Jon. Whether or not she was _in love_ with him remained to be seen. It was a moot point anyway. Marriages were hardly ever made for love. Tyrion didn’t love her. Ramsay—the mere thought of him make her ill—certainly didn’t love her. It was hard to guess Jon’s feelings, but she was fairly sure he loved her. He was not _in love_ with her. Which was fine.

They didn’t need romance to stick a knife in Littlefinger’s throat.

In the end, they had to make due with whomever they had. Namely, Davos Seaworth and a vassal to House Stark Sansa had last seen in the feasting hall. He was an old man, beard speckled with gray, but he swore fealty to Jon with such vigor that Jon had him dragged to the godswood to officiate. Davos gave her away. Neither of them seemed all that surprised by their union. Or Jon’s Targaryen blood.

Sansa wore the blue dress with the wolf bit Jon liked so much. Jon wore the furs she made him.

And thus, they were married.

They exited the godswood one at a time, with Ghost patrolling the forest for possible onlookers. When finally it was Sansa’s turn to leave, Jon grabbed her hand. She stopped and looked at him. He looked at her. A thousand unspoken words drifted between them, mingling with the snowflakes.

“Are you all right?” He asked.

Sansa smiled at him. It was no grin, brimming with affection for her new husband, but it was something. Something sheepish. A little shy, even. She was looking at her _husband_ now. Not her cousin. Strange. “I’ll be better once he’s dead.”

With that, she stepped forward and pressed her lips to Jon’s cheek. She rather liked that he only shaved whenever he remembered to do it. Which wasn’t all that often.

“I’ll distract him until you get there,” she said.

She felt his gaze burning into her all the way back to the castle.

***

Just as she planned, Littlefinger arrived in her chambers at the stroke of midnight.

She had told him that she wanted to discuss the specific arrangements of their impending marriage. Lord Baelish was more than happy to take her up on it. If he had any weakness at all, it was her, and she fully planned on using it to her advantage. Dressed in nothing but her shift, she opened the door to let him inside.

“Sansa,” he said, eyes skimming greedily over her body. To anyone else he might have looked discreet. To her, that look was ravenous. It wouldn’t last long. “You’re up very late. You should get your rest. We’ve a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

Yes. He wanted to take her back to the Vale. Settle his affairs there, marry her where he could control every word, every ritual. His insistence on being the most powerful man in the room was getting quite annoying. Someone _really_ needed to cut him down to his rodent’s size.

Sansa clasped her hands together behind her back, playing the part of the good little bird as she knew Baelish liked. For such a smart man, he was dumbstruck by red hair. “Before we go, I wanted to ask you something.”

“And what would that be?” Candlelight bathed Lord Baelish in flickering orange.

Feet bare, Sansa advanced, stopping just a few breaths before him. She could see his throat bob as he swallowed. “When we marry, do you promise to pledge your knights to the North? I don’t want a temporary alliance, Petyr.”

Petyr. It took some effort not to spit it out like a curse.

Lord Baelish did not let the use of his name go unnoticed. He reached for her, hand stroking the side of her face. Sansa willed her body not to cringe. “When you are Queen, my dear, you can have whatever you’d like.”

That much was true. Now that she was Queen, she could have whatever she liked. His death included.

Littlefinger’s hand trailed away from her cheek, snaking down to caress the curve of her throat. “You are so beautiful, Sansa,” he whispered. “And so very stupid.”

His hand closed around her neck. Sansa’s eyes widened. In her haste to stop him, she dropped the knife she’d been holding behind her back and clawed at Littlefinger’s hand. It was no use. His grip tightened, and Sansa truly began to choke. Eyes burning from the pain, she blinked away her tears and mustered the strength to slap him hard across the face.

It was enough to stun him. And it was enough for Sansa to scramble away. Gasping for precious air, she picked her knife up off the floor and pointed it at an enraged Lord Baelish.

“Look what you made me do!” He said through clenched teeth. “Your pretty neck is all bruised now!”

The only neck Sansa cared about was his. Cutting it, slashing it, stabbing it. As long as she got to see him dead. “What do you care? My pretty neck will never be yours again.”

“You fool girl,” Littlefinger prowled toward her. Sansa backed away, the knife still poised for stabbing. “You’re all used up. The Imp had his way with you, Joffrey beat you, Ramsay broke you. Who else would ever want you? Who else but _me?_ I’ve waited all my life to love you and this is how you repay me? After all I’ve done for you?”

Sansa backed into her bedside table, nearly knocking the candles over. She froze and hoped the candles would freeze with her. Thankfully, they did. Maybe the gods hadn’t abandoned her after all.

Or maybe they had.

Her fear of burning Winterfell to the ground distracted her from the true enemy. Baelish was on her in a second, throwing her into her bed. With a cry, Sansa did everything she could to keep him from getting her knife. She slapped, she kicked, she even bit his ear like Tormund had explained one day after Ramsay’s defeat. She didn’t manage to rip Lord Baelish’s off, but it _had_ been enough to make him wail from the pain.

He cradled his bloodied ear with one hand and lifted his other to slap her. “You ungrateful bi—”

The door flew open. And Littlefinger had no time to finish his insult before Jon grabbed him by his hair and slammed his head against the end table. After that, Jon wrestled Lord Baelish’s weakened arms behind his back. He dragged the little man to the very center of Sansa’s room, kicking his knees out from under him.

Sansa arose from her bed. Her eyes were wide. With shock, relief, or both. It didn’t matter. Jon was here now. And they could finally get this done.

Firstly, Sansa picked one of her discarded shifts off the floor. She balled it in her fist and held her knife with white-knuckled force. She prowled to Little finger as he prowled to her. Preemptive satisfaction thrilled through Sansa’s body. Ramsay Snow, and now Petyr Baelish. She and Jon made a wonderful team.

“What was it you once told me, _Petyr?”_ Sansa asked as though she were inquiring about the weather. He did not struggle in Jon’s arms. He looked up at her, tears in his eyes. Good. Now he knew how it felt. “Clean hands, Sansa. Clean hands.”

_You must always have clean hands._ Do your bitter work but never let yourself be implicated. Of course. She learned from the best.

“Tonight was the last time you will ever touch me again,” she told him. She would not crouch to his level quite yet. Rather, she lorded over him like the wolf she was. “I hope it was worth it.”

Sansa buried her knife in Littlefinger’s neck and kept it there until she could smash the shift against the spurting wound. Clean hands, Sansa. Clean hands. Choking on his red, red death, Lord Baelish slumped in Jon’s arms.

His pinched mouth formed words Sansa could barely hear. She pushed the shift down harder. Littlefinger groaned in agony.

Jon said not a word through the entire ordeal. He simply let Lord Baelish go, and the bleeding man crumpled to the floor, clutching at Sansa’s shift. He would die soon. No amount of cloth could keep him from his end.

_“I—…”_ he gurgled. The shift bloomed with crimson. _“I…”_

Why he insisted on speaking even as the life drained out of him, Sansa could not know. She didn’t care. He was dying. That was all that mattered.

Lord Baelish used the last vestiges of his strength to spit out three more words. Sansa exactly what they would be. _“I love you.”_

“No,” she corrected firmly. “You’ve never loved me. You’ve sold me, you’ve used me, you’ve abused me, but you have never loved me, Lord Baelish. Not once.” She let go of the shift and rose to her feet. “Send my regards to Ramsay.”

And thus with a one last gasp, Petyr Baelish, Lord Protector of the Vale, bled out on Sansa Stark’s bedchamber floor.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Jon have a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, I had two songs on repeat: "A Nearly Peaceful Place" from The Witcher 2 and "The Wedding" from Outlander, volume 1. Both are definitely worth a listen. See you next time!

Jon dipped the rags in the bucket and wrung the excess water out. It dripped brownish onto the floor. Clean hands. Clean enough. Kneeling down before her, Sansa’s newly anointed husband wiped the evidence of her of her vengeance off her skin. Such gentleness from a supposed god. Tenderness from a king. Sansa hoped it would not kill him one day. Again.

“It had to happen,” Jon said, opening her hand in his own and going to work on her palm. Blood crusted in the subtle lines etched there.

Sansa swallowed past the lump in her throat. She did not regret killing Littlefinger. She was not sorry. And that, more than anything she’d done, frightened her the most. She knew what happened to those who drank the wine of revenge. They stayed drunk on it. They blew up the great sept of Baelor with stores of wildfire and had the soon-to-be wives of their sons beaten and humiliated without so much as blinking.

Ramsay deserved to die. Littlefinger deserved to die. Sansa deserved to be free of them. She repeated these things to herself over and over.

_I will never be Cersei_ , she promised herself. _They deserved to die and I will never be Cersei._

Clean hands, Sansa. Clean hands.

Jon paused in his ministrations and caught her gaze. Concern softened his features. “You’re safe now,” he said. It sounded like a promise.

A promise she could not yet wrap her mind around. Safety was an illusion. It existed years ago before they even left Winterfell and decayed as time went on. This world was never safe for women. Not for long. Jon wouldn’t understand. He was King in the North. A god. A Targaryen. The laws of man barely applied to him.

“Jon,” she stayed his hand in hers, fingers curling around the rags. A reluctant fire popped weakly in the Lord’s chamber hearth. They needed to stoke it soon. “What happened when you died? Were you afraid?”

Sansa knew it was a stupid question. But she wanted to know. They barely spoke of it at Castle Black. Now death loomed over them both once more and bound by bonds of marriage, Sansa thought she at least had the right to ask.

Jon’s gaze dropped to their hands. “I don’t think I had the time to be afraid.” He hesitated. “All I could think about while they were stabbing me was…was _why?_ I did what I thought was right and they murdered me for it. A boy younger than Bran, he drove a knife in my heart and _murdered me for it._ ”

Sansa didn’t know what to say. She’d never been murdered. She’d been brutalized in almost every way imaginable— _wished_ she’d just be murdered already—but to actually feel a knife pierce her heart by the people she was supposed to trust was something straight out of a nightmare. She gave Jon’s hand a squeeze.

He continued, his free hand gripping the furs that draped his bed. “After it was over, there was nothing. I know…I know everyone thinks there’d at least be something. A light, a signal, some sort of sign, but no. It was empty. Empty and…dark.”

“I’m sorry,” was all she could think of to say. It seemed a pathetic consolation.

Jon made a Northern noise and shook her pity away. “What’s done is done. I’m here now. That’s all that matters.”

_Yes,_ Sansa agreed. What’s done was done. She was here now. He was here now. That’s all that mattered. Jon busied himself with washing her hands the rest of the way, then deposited the rags back into the bucket. The night was still young. And they were newly married. There were…certain expectations they had yet to address.

Images of Ramsay in all his cruelty flashed before Sansa’s eyes as she sat on Jon’s bed. Her bed now, too. A heady mix of nervousness and anticipation battered her insides. She knew her duty. She knew it had to happen eventually.

But so soon after she just got through killing a man? It didn’t seem right.

Jon, at least, had the grace to seem just as discomfited as she was.

“I—” She began.

“—We,” said Jon at exactly the same time.

Sansa heard herself laugh. It took her by surprise. As did the sheepish smile that spread across Jon’s face. “Ladies first,” he said.

How gallant of him. She took a steadying breath before speaking. “I…I’m fully aware what has to happen Jon. I know it must.” If they didn’t lie with one another as man and wife soon, then their marriage would be in danger and Sansa’s hard won safety would be ripped away from her all over again. “But, this is…”

“A bit awkward,” Jon finished. His smile twitched. He sat next to her on the bed, though he was aware enough to put a good amount of space between them.

Sansa worried at a loose thread on her shift. “Yes. A bit.”

Jon’s silence resigned him to agreement.

They had to consummate their marriage eventually. Sansa was fully aware, as she said, but the thought of it made her terribly shy. Ramsay didn’t give her the chance to feel shy. He forced himself upon he and that was that. Her body still remembered the pain he wrought and her mind would never forget his torture.

Such enormous cruelty was not easily set aside.

“I won’t hurt you,” Jon said. His distinctive Northern mumble filled the room, honest as the night was long. “I won’t touch you unless you want me to. You have my word.”

She didn’t need his word to know he would never harm her, but it was good to hear all the same. She tried to think of something witty to counter with. Something to relieve the tension that drew itself taut between them. But as she searched her brain she found only uncertainty. Love, she assumed, the _act_ of it, was not made for her.

After Ramsay, she never wanted another man’s touch again. Try as she may to forget him that evil monster had left her scarred.

Love, she assumed, the act of it, was not made for her. Perhaps…

Perhaps she assumed wrongly.

It would take years for Ramsay’s touch to stop writhing across her skin. He flayed her as he flayed anyone else. However, unlike the rest of his victims, Sansa found a way to stitch herself back together. Winterfell was the thread, her will was the needle, and Jon was her thimble. She’d never bleed herself again, not while Jon Snow drew breath.

Of this Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, was absolutely certain. Was there any better gift than that?

She put her hand down in the space between them. She looked at Jon and Jon looked at her, brooding as always, though now his gaze smoldered with new light. As though he were looking at her for the very first time.

Fingers tingling with nervousness, Sansa smiled. This composure did not last long, not under Jon’s quiet scrutiny, and within seconds, she bowed her head, tucking her hair behind her ear. She could be brave for her people. She could be brave for her home.

_This_ matter required a bravery she had yet to develop. Ramsay’s brutality made sure of that.

“Jon,” she said, blushing deeply and kicking herself for it. She was no quivering maiden, so why in all the Seven Kingdoms was she acting like it? “You’ve lain with a woman before, haven’t you?”

Jon’s response was swift, though not unkind. “Aye, I have.”

That orange-haired woman he spoke of. Who else could it have been? There wasn’t exactly an abundance of women at the Wall. “Did…did you love her?” Sansa ventured further. She could not bring herself to look at him when she asked. Whoever this orange-haired woman was, Sansa hoped she knew how lucky she had been.

This time, Jon’s response was not nearly as swift. Sansa watched his shadow shift on the bed. “I shouldn’t have. But I did.” A pause. “I loved her as much as I knew how.”

Sansa wondered what it was like. To be in love with someone and have them love you in return. Wholly, and without condition. It was the stuff of songs. Poetry come to life. Before she left Winterfell, she dared to believe it was real. Then King’s Landing came and beat that belief out of her. Then Ramsay came and buried it even further. Then Jon nearly kissed her in the godswood and resurrected it.

Now they were married.

Ramsay was dead. Littlefinger was dead.

Sansa wanted to believe with the desperation of a starving animal in the possibility of love. She craved it. She dreamt of it. She needed it. Everyone needed it. Jon already had it once. Who’s to say he could feel it again? Feel it for _her?_

Littlefinger’s words were an echo in her skull. _Who else would ever want you?_

Sansa moved her hand away. Jon caught it, his index finger hooking around hers. He’d broken his promise already. That he wouldn’t touch her unless she wanted him to. Sansa didn’t mind. “We had a bad ending, Ygritte and I,” Jon said. “That was her name. Ygritte.”

_Ygritte,_ Sansa repeated to herself. If Jon loved her, she had to be remarkable indeed.

“But…” Jon’s hand closed over hers. “I’m going to give you a better one. I swear it.”

Sansa didn’t want to think of endings right now. All she wanted was a beginning. Something new, something better. She deserved it. _They_ deserved it, because, in spite of everything they’d suffered, they were still good people. They earned this softness.

Sansa lifted her head. Before she could give herself time to think about it, she bridged the divide between them and pressed her lips to his. Jon stiffened, and Sansa thought she had done something wrong. The thought went away as Jon melted into the kiss, clutching the back of her neck as he liked to do. The gesture made Sansa feel safe.

_Jon_ made her feel safe.

“Thank you,” she said as she pulled away. Her lips tingled with the memory of him.

Jon smiled. He was staring at her mouth. His thumb traced warm circles along the base of her neck. “What did I do now?”

Sansa’s answer was another kiss. A brief on, for she didn’t trust herself to linger any longer. Then, she laid back in the bed, feeling exquisite against the layers of fur. Jon joined her. Together, they stared up into the darkness until Sansa curled herself up against him, sharing in his warmth. He kissed her forehead and ran his fingers along her bruised throat as though his touch would heal what Littlefinger had done.

This was all Sansa would allow for the night. And it was more than enough.

“Jon,” Sansa said after a long, long while. Their fire had long since gone out.

“Hm?” Jon mumbled. He sounded half-asleep.

The boldness that made Sansa kiss him in the first place returned to her then. She pressed her hand to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. She was so used to him in his armor. He looked so handsome in it. So indomitable. This was nice, too. “Do you think you could ever love me like you loved Ygritte?”

Jon did not move. He held her as tightly as ever, and his voice was almost dreamy in its whispering. “I think I already do.”

Sansa smiled against him.

Even the songs could not have thought of a better answer.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa tries to ignore her guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Life is getting in the way!

The exact cause of Petyr Baelish’s death was a popular topic of conversation for the inhabitants of Winterfell. Naturally, _murder_ burned on the tips of Northern tongues, usually followed by some grunt of satisfaction. Everyone noticed how Littlefinger would devour their Queen with a lingering glance, undress her with a touch.

In life, Lord Baelish was not a popular man, and he was even less so in death. There were no mourners. No sympathies. Only a grim procession back to the Vale, accompanied by a raven fresh from the Stark rookery. It carried with it an important message. To Sansa’s cousin Robin, the new Lord Protector.

 _Dear Robin,_ it read. _I’m sad to say that Uncle Petyr is dead. We have found his murderer and will allow you to punish him accordingly. Stay strong. The Vale needs you now._

Signed,

_Your cousin, Sansa Stark_

_Lady of Winterfell_

She dared not add _Queen in the North_ in case the raven met trouble along the way. Her lack of detail in the message had been a calculated move as well. Robin loved Petyr. Named him Uncle and clung to him like a leech after her Aunt Lysa’s death. Had she told the boy that Littlefinger was the one _responsible_ for Lady Arryn’s premature flight, there was a possibility that he would not believe her. Throw one of his fits and withdraw his troops entirely. Letting them go now was a necessary evil, but losing them forever was not a risk Sansa wanted to take.

 _You should have thought of that before you killed Littlefinger_ , grumbled her better judgement. Was her safety really that paramount over Winterfell’s? She liked to think it was. The rest of the North might not have agreed once the Long Night came and they were without a large part of their army. Hopefully it would never come to that. At the end of the day, White Walkers cared precious little for the bonds of man and kingdom.

Sansa did not know what _exactly_ they cared for, of course, but she was sure it wasn’t an iron chair.

“A terrible shame about Lord Baelish,” lamented Lissa, the freckled girl who had insinuated herself into Sansa’s growing group of friends. If they could be called that. Ladies, then. Every queen had to have them.

“I suppose,” said the Mormont girl. Alvrun was her name. She wasn’t actually a Mormont, Sansa discovered, but a bastard. Sansa never inquired past that. It was not her business. Not her place. Though the Queen in the North felt a special sort of kinship toward her anyway. One bastard to another.

The rest of the girls were absent today. Another wave of snow gusted through last night, and since Sansa had not officially declared her ladies as of yet, they had no reason to be here. Lissa and Alvrun were either very dedicated or very bored.

At least now they didn’t have to pretend to sew.

Alvrun leaned forward in her chair, sipping at her mug of warm cider. Sansa had them delivered from the kitchens. “Have either of you heard about the Targaryen woman?”

Sansa sipped her own cider, letting the liquid burn her tongue. The Targaryen name held new weight with her now. They were no longer the legends from the songs, the madness in the flames. They were _real._ A foreign queen and a King in the North.

The world grew stranger with each passing day.

“Lady Sansa?” Lissa’s voice roused her from her thoughts.

Sansa blinked. “Yes?”

“Are we boring you already?” Alvrun asked, mouth twisted in a smirk that lingered on self-depreciating. Bastard brave.

Sansa put her mug down on the little table next to her chair. She was sure to wear her furs today. To cover up the bruises. “No, of course not. Though I _am_ curious about Daenerys Targaryen. Has there been any news?”

“I heard the stable boy say that she’s nearing Westeros,” Lissa whispered conspiratorially. Her eyes got wide as twin moons. “Do you _really_ think her dragons are real?”

“The White Walkers are real,” Alvrun said. “I don’t see why those dragons wouldn’t be as well.” A pause. “At any rate we’d do well not to underestimate that woman. After all she’s done across the sea. Freeing those slaves.”

Sansa let the conversation flow around her. Alvrun was right. They would be foolish indeed if they underestimated the Mother of Dragons. She seemed the ruthless sort. Breaker of Chains. The Unburnt. Sansa hadn’t the fortitude to remember the rest of her names at the moment. It had been a draining week.

Least taxing among her queenly duties was choosing who would have to fly out the Moon Door for her crime. She chose a serial rapist from Winterfell’s dungeons. He’d also been accused of murder before, so Sansa felt even less guilty for signing him over to the Vale.

The guilt did not fade entirely, however. It was the ache in her stomach. The pain in her forehead. The voice in her mind branding her a murderer. No better than Cersei or Littlefinger. Her parents, Sansa thought, would be so disappointed in her.

It didn’t matter right now. Robin could never find out what she had done. Not until the Walkers were defeated and the North was stabilized once and for all.

A knock sounded on the door. The conversation about how big the dragons might have been came to a halt. Both Lissa and Alvrun looked to Sansa to make the first move.

“Yes?” Sansa said.

The door opened. Much her pleasure, it was Jon. He cut an imposing figure against the light. “Pardon me,” he said. His gaze rested on Sansa. “Could I speak with you for a moment?”

She stood, excusing herself from her “ladies” with the promise that she’d return in a moment. Jon drew her out into the hall and shut the door behind them.

“There’s been a raven from the Wall,” he said. Softly, so no passers-by could hear. “Bran is there. With Meera Reed.”

“Truly?” Sansa’s heart skipped a beat. Up until a few weeks ago, she had thought Bran dead. Now with her vision and this recent news, the possibility of seeing her brother again was all too real. She clasped Jon’s hand, giving it a tug. “Jon, we have to make sure he arrives here safely.”

Jon glanced over his shoulder. No one was there. Turning back to Sansa, he grimaced. “He doesn’t _want_ to come here.”

Sansa stared at her husband in disbelief. All she ever wanted to do since her father died was come back home. Now that she was here, she couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be. “Why?”

“The message didn’t say.” Jon gripped Longclaw and stared blankly at the floor. “If we’d stayed there just a few weeks longer…”

“Then we wouldn’t have Winterfell back,” Sansa said. Resorting to that kind of talk would not help them now. Not when Bran was so close. They had to see him again. They had to ensure his safety. Sooner rather than later. Sansa put her free hand over Jon’s—the one that gripped Longclaw. “I’ll send a raven back to the Wall. If Bran doesn’t respond, then I’ll go up there myself.”

Sansa could practically see the protests spinning in Jon’s mind. _No, it’s not safe. I’ll go in your stead. You’ll get hurt. You don’t know the way without an escort._ Whatever his protests were, Sansa would not hear them. Winterfell needed their king. Not the queen they did not realize they had.

Besides, she was more confident in herself now than she ever was—recent events notwithstanding. If Bran needed her, the gods themselves would not stop her from getting to her. Not even the god standing right in front of her, husband or no.

“But…wherever Bran may be, we can’t afford to make any rash decisions right now,” Sansa continued, hoping to wipe that perpetually dour look off Jon’s face. Despite knowing a losing battle when she saw one, she kept on. “Everyone else’s eyes may be on the south, but the rest of the North looks to us for leadership. We…we can’t…”

_We can’t let anything like Littlefinger happen again._

Clean hands, Sansa. No one would ever suspect her of murdering Lord Baelish. That man had precious few friends and the friends he did have were either bought or manipulated. To the ignorant public, Sansa was one such “friend.” The object of Lord Baelish’s affections now that the former Lady Stark was dead.

 _He doesn’t matter anymore_ , Sansa told herself sternly. _Covering it up is the only way. Remember what happened to father when_ he _tried to tell the truth. Remember what happened to Robb when_ he _tried to be honorable. Remember what happened to Jon._

Dead and gone, the lot of them. The reason why Jon still lived had yet to be deciphered. Red sorcery, Sansa knew, but the exact details of his resurrection were not something liked to discuss at length. Last night in her bedroom was the only time since leaving the Wall that she’d gotten him to speak of it.

 “No one at the Wall will hurt Bran,” Jon said. He seemed none too sure of it, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Send the raven. Then we’ll wait and see.”

“It’ll be off by the afternoon,” Sansa reassured him with a slight smile.

Jon barely managed a nod. A couple of scullery maids with buckets tucked underneath their arms came hurrying down the corridor. They glanced at Jon as they passed, eyes lingering too long on Sansa’s hands—still clasped with Jon’s. Sansa moved away as though she’d been touching something far too hot.

“I should get back to my…” Sansa searched for a proper word to call Alvrun and Lissa. “My friends.” She braced the door and prepared to open it, but Jon’s hand was on her shoulder before she got the chance. She looked back at him, expectant.

“The Knights of the Vale had a prisoner with them,” he said quietly, lips very near her ear. “Was that your doing?”

Sansa paled. That she planned to cover up Littlefinger’s murder was not something she deigned to share with Jon. She knew she should have. She knew she had to trust him. And she did. Just…not in matters such as these. He would have done the noble thing and implicated himself in the murder if he had to.

They couldn’t afford that.

Sansa refused to let Jon’s honor kill him (again). She couldn’t stand it. Not after her father. Not after Robb. The Starks were beloved for their compassion. And it nearly wiped them out. Stark though she was, Sansa was determined to keep Winterfell from now until she died. She did what she had to. Jon could disapprove all he wanted. He wasn’t the one dirtying his hands here.

“I did what had to be done,” Sansa said, angling her face away from his. “For Winterfell. And for you.”

Jon’s hand fell away.

Sansa pushed the door open. Alvrun and Lissa were on their feet, ready to curtsy for Jon as though he cared a lick about that sort of thing.

“Please tell me if there’s any more news,” Sansa said, her voice deceptively even. The reality of it was that she still clung to their intimacy from the night before with a ferocity she hadn’t felt since she first spied him at the Wall. The memory of his fingers gently brushing the bruising around her throat was enough to make her want to blush. Their kisses, however brief, lingered on her lips. She pressed them together in an attempt to make the feeling go away.

It didn’t help that Jon was pretending _not_ to stare at her mouth.

“Your Grace,” she said.

“Your Grace,” Alvrun and Lissa parroted. They curtseyed.

Jon nodded a wordless acknowledgement, then walked away.

“Is it just me, or does he seem angrier than usual today?” Said Alvrun when they could be sure Jon was out of earshot. Apparently she felt little need to censor herself without the other girls around.

“He is our _King,”_ Lissa said, affronted on Jon’s behalf.

“That he is, and a pretty one at that, but…”

Sansa could think of nothing useful to add to this conversation, for all she could feel when she tried to speak was Jon’s mouth on hers.

And how much it would ache to sleep alone tonight.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa makes an important decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're reaching the end here, fam...

All evidence of Littlefinger’s death had been scrubbed from Sansa’s chambers. Fresh linens covered her bed, the floors practically sparkled in the firelight, and every candle smelled of new wax. Memories of that night lingered only in Sansa’s mind.

She sat at her mirror, running a brush through her auburn hair, humming “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” under her breath. It was one of the few songs she could tolerate anymore. These days, most of them rang saccharine. False. They were lies dressed up in pretty words set to a jaunty tune. Formulated to trick stupid girls into believing in knights and fairy stories and true love. At least “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” didn’t pretend to be anything but a bawdy tavern song.

Once Sansa was done brushing her hair, she stared at herself in the mirror and the young lady in the mirror stared back. Dark circles ringed her eyes and her mouth was set in a near-permanent line, exhausted yet proud. The girl who left Winterfell all those years ago was foreign to the woman who now existed in her place.

That girl was an idiot who believed marrying Joffrey Baratheon would solve all her problems. _What dress should I wear today? Whatever shall I do with my hair? Should I have the lemon cakes for dessert or the honey rolls?_

Stupid, stupid girl. Sansa hated her. She did not like her reflection much better, but at least that woman had her wits about her. She no longer fluttered through life thinking it was a song. She no longer let her gods distract her. She no longer believed in love for love’s sake. It always came with a price. Littlefinger’s twisted idea of “love” required not just her body, but her soul as well. Ramsay did not love her—far from it. Joffrey didn’t either. Nor did Tyrion.

Sansa had yet to discover what Jon’s price would be.

She put her brush down, laid her hands upon the vanity palms up. Her clean hands had been so soiled that she couldn’t see skin anymore. Only blood. Dripping from her fingertips. Ramsay, Littlefinger, the man she sent to Vale. Dead. Because of her.

A lump formed in her throat. Her fingers curled into her palms, nails biting skin. This was not a world for nobility. The death of her father taught her that. She did what she had to do in order to save herself and protect those she held dear. She was not a senseless murderer like Cersei. A power-mad monster like Joffrey. A bloody nightmare like Ramsay.

She was Sansa Stark. Lady of Winterfell. Queen in the North. And she would carry on, head held high. No one would use, abuse, underestimate her again.

Yes, she told herself all of these things. They sounded sweet, promises made in the dead of summer even though winter rained its rage on her doorstep. She told herself all of these things and she still saw tears her in reflection’s glassy eyes.

She wiped them away just as a knock sounded on her door.

Swallowing hard, she got to her feet and went to answer. It was Jon, of course. Come to tell her how evil she was for condemning that man to stand for the crime she committed.

“If you’re here to lecture me, I don’t want to hear it,” she said. She did not move to let Jon inside. One hand clutched the edge of the door while the other hung limply at her side.

Jon, wearing his blacks without his furs, bowed his head as he often did when chastised. _Good_ , Sansa thought, _let him feel that way. Maybe then he’ll leave me alone._

Jon did not leave her alone. “I just want to talk,” he said.

When Sansa still did not move, Jon barely repressed a sigh. He pressed a hand against her door, though he had the sense not to push. “I only want to…It’ll just be a moment.” A pause. “Please.”

Sansa stared at Jon. Jon stared back. She hated him immensely in that moment for the perpetual look of sadness he always wore. She knew he did not wear it on purpose—he didn’t have it in him to manipulate people like that—but it was frustrating nonetheless. Especially when she was trying to be angry with him.

Wordlessly, she let Jon inside and shut the door behind him.

This was the first time they’d been in the same room since the morning. Since he wouldn’t stop staring at her mouth. Since she could _feel_ his judgement radiating off of him like frost. It appeared that judgement had yet to fade, because Jon led his little “talk” with the worst possible thing.

“Why did you do that?” He asked. His voice was not as terse as it was this morning, but its edge was still hardened. “That man—”

“—that man was a murderer and a rapist,” she said, fixing Jon with the steadiest gaze she could manage. She was a Queen now. His wife. He had to respect that as she had to respect him. “At least now he can die knowing he’s doing his part for his King.”

“His _King_ should have swung the damn sword himself!” Jon snapped. His hands were bare and chapped. Clean hands, despite the dirt smudging his fingers. “If you were so worried about what the Vale would think, why didn’t you come to me? We need to _help_ each other, Sansa, not—”

She flew at him, made bold by rage. “You don’t know Robin as I do, you don’t know _anything_ about court as I do!” As she said the words, she felt quite the brat. But it was all true, was it not? Jon did not know Robin Arryn, that impetuous child. Jon did not know how fickle he could be, how sensitive, how ridiculous. Jon knew nothing but what he learned at the Wall, and she was certain that had to courts there. No patience for politics.

Despite knowing how petulant she sounded, Sansa could not stop herself. “I knew you would react like this, I _knew_ you would try and talk me out of it.” There was more she wanted to say. But even in Winterfell she felt she could not fully speak her mind. Her hands shook. She did her best to rein herself in. “Some wars aren’t won with swords, Jon. I did what I did for the safety of Winterfell. And for you.”

Jon, who had been silent the entire time she spoke, looked to the door, then back to her. “You condemned that man for a crime he did not commit.”

Had he not listened to a single word she said? It took great effort not to start shouting again. “Better that than alienate the Vale entirely. You’re not stupid, Jon, you know we need every man we can get when the Long Night comes.”

Jon visibly softened, his shoulders becoming a little less rigid, his mouth a little less pinched. “If anything like this happens again, we need to discuss it first. You’re my…”

The word _wife_ hung between them like a curse neither one of them wanted to utter. She was his wife, yes, but a marriage did not a relationship make. As much as she longed for him, she had prepared herself for something strictly political. Perhaps their night together was a simple fluke. Borne out of stress and Jon’s natural need to take care of everyone before himself.

She’d been a fool to assume that he would ever just come to love her like she so desperately wanted.

It seemed the girl she had once been was not as dead as she thought.

“Sansa.”

The feeling of his thumb brushing against her cheek shocked her out of her stupor. Blinking rapidly, Sansa’s gaze flickered to meet Jon’s. He was very close to her now. Wiping at tears she had not realized she’d shed.

She wanted to push him away. She wanted to scream at him and call him names. Instead she only stood there, incapacitated by his touch and that softness in his eyes. Such terrible, wonderful gentleness. He did not realize how well he wielded it.

Abandoning all reason and the parts of her that wanted to be angry at him, Sansa pressed her hands to Jon Snow’s chest and kissed him directly on the mouth. Warm and solid, Jon hesitated only a heartbeat before kissing her back. Heat throbbed in the put of Sansa’s stomach. It flared with a fierceness that startled her as much as it pleased her.

She’d never in her life felt this way about anyone before. She didn’t even think it possible.

She pulled away before the fires consumed her entirely.

“What’s wrong?” Jon asked thickly, reaching for her hand so that she could not flee like she wanted to. “I didn’t, ah…I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Sansa shook her head. She touched her tingling lips, tasting him there. Seven hells. He frightened her. He made her ache and ache and _ache._ Worst of all, the thought of him returning to his chambers alone horrified her. She couldn’t be alone in here tonight. With the ghosts of everything she had done.

“Don’t…” She ran her hands along the subtle stitching of his chest piece. Her voice trembled. “Don’t leave me alone here tonight. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t…after everything, I can’t…”

“I won’t,” Jon said. He covered her wandering hand with his own.

Silence fell between them. Sansa had so many things she wanted to say. Not a one of them sounded correct or appropriate. They had few chances to talk during the day. Few chances to be alone together. Now their solitude had taken on an entirely new meaning. Their marriage was still a secret. As was Jon’s parentage.

They had to be careful if they wanted to keep this ruse alive.

Sansa was always careful. Always looking over her shoulder for some unseen threat. Always thinking before she acted. This was one aspect of her life where she tired of being so astute. She needed to know what this marriage was going to be.

“What…” The words got stuck in her throat. She glanced down at her bare feet, then back up to Jon. “What am I to you, Jon?”

Jon blinked, studying her mouth with such intensity that Sansa could not help but blush. “You’re…my Queen,” he said. It seemed a struggle to get that much out. Less of a struggle was his kiss, warm and firm against her lips. “And…my wife.”

Sansa didn’t need to hear anything else. That heat still burning inside of her, she stepped away from Jon and went to her bed. Love did not need to be unkind. It did not need to be cruel. Sometimes, all it took was two people willing to be gentle with one another.

He promised never to touched her until she wanted him to.

“I think I’d like you to touch me now,” she said simply. Yes, she decided. She wanted that very, very much.

Jon obliged.


End file.
